The Palatka news and advertiser., 1915-04-16
CHAMPION TOMATO
RAISER IN NORTH.
Iowa Girl Raises 5,318
Pounds from One-tenth
Acre Plat.

MISS ElolSe PARSONS, the young Wo-
; man whose record in the United States
department of agricultures garden
and canning cl' bs was the best of
the thousands made by members in
the 33 Northern States. Miss Par
sons obtained yield of 5,318 pounds
of tomatoes from her tenth-acre plat.
Her costs were 1851, and her net
profits were $115.57. Her costs cover
item of expense in raising the crop,
including rent Of land her own time
ESTIMATED at 10 cents an hour), fer
tilizers and sprays. She describes
some of her difficulties in obtaining
this result as follows:
81 decided / would try and have
ripe tomatoes very early and so OBJ
tain good prices for them. So in the
latter part of February l planted the
early variety in three boxes which |
placed on shelf in front of the ssuth
windows in the dining room. In
short time they came through and
grew rapidly. But they began to
grow tall and spindly, so in the latter
part of March l transplanted part of
them into small pasteboard boxes, one
plant in each. By doing this l could
move them to the open without dis
turbing the roots, and hindering the
development of the plants. Then as
soon as it was warm enough | set the
rest in a cold frame, four inches
apart each way. On the first of April
; | planted the late variety in the hot
bed. Those in the cold frame and in
the pasteboard boxes developed
great amount of roots and were very
strong, some in bloom, when | trans
planted them to the open on the 22nd
of May. The plants in the hot bed
did not develop such strong roots, and
because of this fact (and also that it
was very dry, I lost quite few of
them when | transplanted them. AT
ter filling in for the fourth time few
vacant places still remained, as it was
almost impossible to get them started
because of the early drought. In all
had over 600 plants.
81 hoed them after each rain and
whenever | thought it necessary. As
we moved to this place this spring,
| and the garden was not plowed i'll
the fall, many weed seeds were not
destroyed, and | had very hard time
keeping the weeds down. The plants
, did not grow very large, and as it
continued very dry, | decided it not
best to stake the plants The plants
did not make very great growth
| and very few needed pruning. | hoed
them until the tomatoes began to ri
pen and the plants were too large.
J 81 picked my first ripe tomatoes on
the 9th of July. From then on the
. pickings every two or three days
grew larger. At first | received ten
cents a pound, but soon the price be-
gan to fall so that after the 1st of
September l received only two cents
!; a pound. AS my father runs a dairy,
he took the tomatoes with him and
sold them easily to the hotels, restau-
rants, and milk customers. He was
able to sell almost all of them until
the green ones were gathered. AS
long as we could get dollar bushel
for the tomatoes fresh and as we
were so very busy with the work of
a dairy, | thought it best not to can
them
"After school began | was kept
very busy in picking the tomatoes.
For several weeks it took me three
evenings of the week to get over the
entire patch and often gathered over
ten bushels. During the second and
third weeks of September we had so
much rainy weather that | could not
gather the tomatoes, and after the
rains they began to ripen so rapidly
that many of them split. On the 18th
and 18th of October | had to gather
the green ones. | gathered 1888
pounds. There was no sale for these.
We used all we could and gave some
to the neighbors, and still a great
many went to waste, as they were wet
when they were gathered, and as it
turned warm again, they rotted very
fast. AS we had a great deal of
company this summer, and because
our other garden vegetables were not
as good as usual, we used more to-
motoes fresh.
81 made a collection of canned
fruits, vegetables, and meats, which
consisted of the following: tomatoes,
beets, white wax beans, green podded
beans, celery, carrots, picked onions,
beet greens. pumpkin, shelled beans,
pears, apples, plums, peaches, cher
ries, Strawberries, raspberrieS, white
and purple grapes, sausage, chicken,
corn, watermelon pickles, and goose
berries. exhibited this collection at
the state fair and won first, sec
ond, and fourth on it and my other
club work. l did all this canning by
the cold packed, hot water bath pro-
cess. | also canned, alone, 80 quarts
of winfall apples, ten quarts of
gooseberries, six pints of beans, 100
quarts of tomatoes. l also helped
with the canning of the Strawberries,
cherries, peaches, tomato butter and
catsIp, apple jellies and gooseberry
jam.
Gas to my other club work, 1 will
say that l was at Des Moines dur
ing the state fair, and helped to rec
ord and care for the exhibits sent in
by club members. also gave q can
ming demonstration for the county
teachers meeting at Clarinda on the
26th of September. The demonstra-
ton was held in the domestic science
rooms at the high school building.
took NV own Gamer, tomatoes and