Tomatoes 
Tomatoes IT is among amateur gardeners that the greatest number of converts to the tomato ‘cult’ have been made. Professional gardeners also grow many more than they did in my younger days, say from thirty-five to forty years ago. It is not, however, among their employers that the tomato has gained such a popularity, but rather among the industrial classes. The rapidly acquired love for tomatoes is really responsible for the remarkable increase in the number of glazed structures to be seen in all directions – these ranging from ‘acres of glass,’ owned by market growers, to the tiny span-roofed or lean-to structures, of which working-men and amateurs generally are the proud proprietors. It is truly a wonderful revolution, the beneficial effects of which can neither be properly appreciated nor gainsaid. The cultivation of tomatoes affords much pleasurable, and comparatively inexpensive, excitement to innumerable amateurs, and leads to the production of abundance of this wholesome, appetising ‘fruit-vegetable.’ Tomatoes are come to stay, and are becoming as popular as apples with the man in the street. This is as it should be.
Three-quarter span-roofed house
Best Form of House 
Which is the best form of house for tomato culture? is a question frequently asked; and I have no hesitation in giving the preference to span-roofed structures. Whether these shall be ten feet, twelve feet, or fourteen feet in width as well as the length, ought to depend upon circumstances, and more especially the means of the intending builder. In either case I would have glazed sides resting on either a light brick wall or boarded substitute – the latter bricks or wood-work – being up to the height it is intended to have side stagings or beds, while the eaves should be from five to six feet above the ground level. The centre, or ridge, should be eight feet to ten feet above the level of door sill, this giving a fair amount of head-room and a moderately sharp roof angle.
The ten and twelve feet wide houses should have side benches or beds only, in width about three feet. In a fourteen feet wide house there may be a bench or bed on each side, thirty inches wide, and a central bed, pit, or staging, four feet wide, which allows for a thirty-inch pathway all round. These span-roofed houses may run in almost any direction, but are most satisfactory when running from north to south. Where there is a sunny wall from four to six feet high that it is desirable should be utilised, a three-quarter span-roofed house, with a five feet high glazed front, may be attached to this; or if the wall be nine feet and upwards in height, that might form a good back to a plain lean-to house, with a front as advised for the other houses. In each and every case both hinged front and top ‘lap’ ventilators should be provided, perfect ventilation being essential to success with tomatoes.
How tomatoes are grown at Reading college
Varieties
Each season novelties are introduced, which may or may not be improvements on older varieties. Only those with ample means could give a fair trial to these novelties, and it is a case of the best coming to the front, in the course of time, by sheer merit. Personally, I have found none to excel ‘Early Prolific’ – a moderately robust, free setting, heavy cropping variety, producing medium-sized and handsome firm fruit of good quality. ‘Holmes’ Supreme’ is another favourite of mine, and this is one of the best for small houses. With the latter I would associate ‘The Comet.’ These compact-growing, heavy-cropping varieties produce abundance of medium-sized flat-round fruit of the best quality in amateurs’ houses. There may be other varieties equal or even superior to those I have named, but I have not met with them. Extra large fruit is not appreciated nowadays, either by judges at flower shows or by connoisseurs generally; but if larger tomatoes for exhibition purposes than those I have recommended are desired, then either ‘Perfection’ or ‘Duke of York’ may be grown.
Raising the Plants
For an extra early supply, produced by the aid of a certain amount of forcing, the plants should be raised in September, kept in small pots on shelves in a warm greenhouse till January, and then placed in their fruiting quarters. These should give ripe fruit early in May. As a rule, amateurs will find January, or even February, quite soon enough to commence raising plants, and if their houses are largely filled with various greenhouse plants in pots, and not therefore available for tomatoes till early in May, March is the time to sow the seed.
A method of raising tomato plants in frames
The ingenuity of amateurs is frequently exercised in the matter of ‘fixing up’ tomato plants in their fruiting quarters. A variety of boxes, tubs, buckets, and the like are requisitioned as being cheaper as well as better in some respects than flower-pots. In pots the soil dries up too quickly, or much more so than it does in non-conductive wooden boxes, shallow tubs, or wooden buckets bought from grocers. These arranged along the fronts or sides of the houses, so as not to interfere with the ventilating irons or gear, hold a row of plants which may be trained fifteen inches or rather less apart. Where there is a central pit or staging, as recommended in the case of span-roofed houses, fourteen feet or more in width, that may also be made to hold two or three rows of plants disposed so as not to unduly shade each other, while the back walls of lean-to and three-quarter span-roofed houses may also be covered thinly with tomato plants.
The right depth at which to plant a tomato seedling
Other Cultural Details
Stakes should be placed early to each plant, light ones to conduct them up to a roof trellis of some kind, and much stouter and longer ones for those to be fruited uprightly. In some instances the latter have short stakes placed to each, strings being fastened to these and the roof for the plants to be trained to. I have been advising with the idea that single-stemmed plants only be grown, but if need be a branch or two may be laid in and treated as main stems. Personally, I prefer to keep the plants to one stem, and only recommend the other plan when plants are scarce. No superfluous side-shoots ought to be allowed to develop to a great length before they are cut out, as this means so much wasted energy, and may interfere with the setting of fruit. If the plants grow strongly, continue to train them up the roof or stakes till their limit is reached, though exception should be made in the case of those growing up the roofs of the wider houses, with more tomato plants arranged on the central bed or staging. Topping – that is to say, pinching out the centre of a leader – may be done at one leaf beyond the last truss of flowers.
Defoliation
I am making a special paragraph of this, because the system of trimming off nearly all the leaves from tomato plants, directly the lower clusters of fruit are set, seems peculiarly fascinating to amateurs. Carried to the extreme it is however a most senseless, albeit very common, practice, and which I have long fought against. A certain amount of defoliating is necessary in some cases, an instance of which is given by the illustration of a plant where the leaves on the plant were extra strong, smothering most of the fruit. Rows or beds of plants in this condition would be most liable to disease attack. Wholly removing one or two leaves and portions of the rest so as to let air pass through, and to expose the fruit to more light and sun, , is a correct proceeding, and very different to wholesale defoliating. This untimely removal of all the leaves paralyses the growth of the plants, checks the fruit from developing properly, and they are lighter in weight and poorer in quality accordingly.