Newport daily independent., 1902-07-24
VEGETABLES TO ORDER.
Wonderful Progress In Garden Truck
 Culture.

good quality of the vegetables sold ten years ago with what are in the market today, the difference would be striking, even to those who know little of such matters.
 Probably no more. striking example of the progress made in the time mentioned can be found than is fur nished by the tomato. Here is an humble product of the garden, beloved by all men who have proper fond- ness for good things, that has been so changed and improved of late as hardly to know itself. And it is strange, yet true, that the improve ment in the tomato has been due largely to the discovery of that pop ular ailment appendicitis.
 When the surgeons first established the fact that appendicitis and collie were not one and the same thing, and began to operate for the relief and cure of appendicitis there was much discussion as to the cause of the then
 
 became general that it was due to the presence of foreign bodies in the ap pendix, such as fruit and vegetable seeds, and, thereupon, the doom of the tomato was sounded because of the many seeds contained in it. There were large and small and highly col ored tomatoes in the market but all were full of seeds. Here then was 8 serious situation confronting the big tomato growers as well as gardeners generally.
 There were then and there are still men who make a speciality of tomato growing and who originate all the new varieties that are offered to the growers. These did not despair, but said if the public wouldn't eat to- matoes with seeds in it, they would grow tomato without seeds. And they did. Not entirely without seeds, to be sure, but with so few seeds in them to justify the, assertion of the originators that they had produced a seedless tomato; whereupon the to- mato was restored to public favor.
 But that was not the only change made in the tomato. Without the great number of seeds they were found to be far sweeter in flavor This flavor was retained, while the size and solidity were increased, until today there are tomatoes running up to six inches in diameter, from two to four pounds each in weight, that are as solid as piece of meat, defy all sorts of weather, that last from first picking until the coming of frost and of which as high as twenty tons have been taken from a single acre. The tomato specialists are justly proud of their accomplishment.
 But improvement in other directions have been just as great and often without such good reason. Many gardners objected to the old way of growing lima beans. They didn't want to go to the expense of cutting poles and sticking them in the ground for the beans to run up on, and it took the beans a long while to mature any way; so they turned out bush lima bean, which grows only two feet high, needs no support and upon which the beans mature quickly and in great quantities. While they were at it they originated new lot of string beans which were ready for the mar ket all of two weeks earlier than the usual kinds, which were really string less and so tender they snapped when not picked carefully. That was an other big stride.
 Then the men who know more than most folks could dream about straw berries, thought they would see what they could do. First they increased the size of the berries until they had shown specimens almost as big as one's fist with whole fields averaging a dozen to full quart measure. Then they improved the flavor of the big berries until they were as sweet as the wild berry. After that, varieties were introduced that were earlier than others which extended the sea- son for this fruit Not satisfied with that, a progressive Frenchman brought fourth a strawberry that is marvel in it's way, for it produces three crops in year and is practically everbear- ing until killed by frost. These ber- ries can be picked in the spring, in