This has been the subject of a vast amount of horticultural writing, and the practice of different growers, and in different sections, varies greatly. I give the methods I have used successfully, together with reasons for following them, but it may be well for the reader to modify them to suit his own conditions and requirements.

Largest yield. Some 45 to 50 days before plants can be safely set in the open field the flats in which the seed is to be sown should be filled with light, rich, friable soil, it being important that its surface be made perfectly level, and that it be compact and quite moist, but not so wet as to pack under pressure. Sow the seed in drills 3/8 inch deep and 2 to 3 inches apart at the rate of 10 to 20 to the inch; press the soil evenly over them, water and place in the shade in an even temperature of 80 to 90 deg. F. As soon as the seeds begin to break soil, which they should do in three to four days, place in full light and temperature of 75 to 80 deg., keeping the air rather close so as to avoid necessity of watering. After a few days reduce the temperature to about 65 deg. and give as much air as possible. Some growers press a short piece of 2-inch joist into the soil of the benches, so as to form trenches 2 inches wide and about 3/8 inch deep, and so spaced as to be under the center of each row of glass, their sash being mostly made of five-inch glass. In this, by using a little tin box with holes in the top, like those of a pepper-box, they scatter seeds so that they will be nearly 1/8 to 1/4 inch apart, over the bottom of the 2-inch wide trench, and then cover. This has the advantage of evenly spacing the plants and so locating the rows that the plants will be little liable to injury from drip.

Young tomato plants are very sensitive to over-supply of water and some of the most successful growers do not water at all until the plants are quite large and then only when necessary to prevent wilting. In 10 to 15 days, or as soon as the central bud is well started, the plants should be pricked out, setting them 3 to 6 inches apart, according to the size we expect them to reach before they go into the field; 5 inches is the most common distance used. I think it better to set the full distance apart at first, not to transplant a second time. It is very important that this pricking out should be done when the plants are young and small, though many successful growers wait until they are larger. The soil in which they are set, whether it be in boxes or beds, should be composed of about three parts garden loam, two parts well-rotted stable manure and one part of an equal mixture of sand and leaf mold, though the proportion of sand used should be increased if the garden loam is clayey. The soil in the seed-boxes or in the beds, when the seedlings are taken up, should be in such condition, and the plants be handled in such a way that nearly all the roots, carrying with them many particles of soil, are saved. The plants should be set a little, and but a little, deeper than they stood in the seed-box and the soil so pressed about the roots, particularly at their lower end, that the plants can not be easily pulled out.

Where plants are set in beds the work can be facilitated by the use of a “spotting-board”. This should be about 1 foot in width, and have pegs about 3 inches long, 3/4 inch in diameter at the base and tapering to a point, fastened into the board the distance apart the plants are to be set. It should also have narrow projections carrying a single peg nailed to the top of board at each end, so that when these pegs are placed in the end holes of the last row the first row of pegs in the “spotting board” will be the right distance from the last row of holes or plants. By standing on this, while setting plants in one set of holes, holes for another set are formed. If the conditions of soil, air and plants are right and the work is well done, the plants will show little tendency to wilt, and it is better to prevent their doing so by shading, rather than by watering, though the latter should be resorted to if necessary. When plants are set in beds, some growers remove the soil to a depth of about 6 inches and put in a layer of about 2 inches of sifted coal ashes, made perfectly level, and then replace the soil. This confines the roots to the surface and enables one to secure nearly all of them when transplanting. The plants should be well established in 24 hours and after this the more light and air that can be given, without the temperature falling below 40 deg. F. or subjecting the plants to cold, dry wind, the better.

One can hardly overstate the importance to the healthy growth of the young tomato plant of abundant sunshine, a uniform day temperature of from 60 to 80 deg. F., or of the ill effects of a variable temperature, particularly if it be the result of cold, dry winds, or of a wet, soggy soil, the effect of over-watering. These points should be kept in mind in caring for the plants, and every effort made to secure, as far as possible, the first named conditions and to avoid the latter. The frames, whether they be covered with sash or cloth, but more particularly if with sash in sunshine and with curtains in dull days, should be opened so as to prevent their becoming too hot, and so as to admit air. And in a greenhouse full ventilation should be given whenever it is possible to do so without exposure to too low a temperature. If the plants are in boxes and on greenhouse shelves, it is important that these be turned end for end every few days to equalize exposure to light and give full exposure to the sun. The plants should be watered only when necessary to prevent wilting, and the beds should be covered during heavy rains.

The most unfavorable weather conditions are bright sun combined with a cold wind, and cold storms of drizzling rain and frosty nights. Loss from the latter cause may often be prevented by covering the beds with coarse straw, which should always be provided for use in an emergency. Many growers provide a second curtain an old one answers very well to throw over the straw-covered beds. Beds so covered will protect the plants from frost in quite severe weather. Watering should especially be avoided for nearly three days before setting in fields; but six to twelve hours before it is well to water thoroughly, though not so as to make the soil at all muddy. About five days after pricking out and again about five days before the plants are to go into the field and five days after they are set, they should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture.

Early ripening fruit. Here the aim is to secure, by the time they can be set in the field, plants which have come by an unchecked but comparatively slow rate of growth to the greatest size and maturity consistent with the transplanting to the field without too serious a check. The methods by which this is accomplished vary greatly and generally differ materially from those given above. The seed is planted much earlier and 60 to 90 days before it is at all safe to set plants in the open field; while a steady rate of growth is desirable, it should be slow and the plants kept small by a second and even third and fourth transplanting, and especial care taken to avoid the soft and irregular growth resulting from over-watering or over-heating. Any side shoots which may appear should be pinched out and a full pollination of the first cluster of the blossoms secured, either by direct application of pollen or by staking or jarring the plants on bright days; and finally, special efforts made to set the plants in the field as early and with as little check as possible. Growers are often willing to run considerable risk of frost for the sake of early setting.

When one has sandy land a very profitable crop can sometimes be secured by sowing the seed very early, and growing the plants on in beds until the first cluster of fruit is set, then heeling them in, much as nursery trees are, but so close that they can be quickly covered in case of frost. As soon as it is at all safe to do so, they are set in the open ground, very closely, on the south side of ridges, so that only the upper one-third of the plant is exposed, the remainder being laid nearly level and covered with earth.

So treated the plants will ripen the upper one or two clusters very early but will yield little more until late in the season, and it is generally more profitable to plow them up and put in some other crop as soon as the first clusters of fruit have ripened. Others pinch out the central bud as soon as it is well formed, usually within 10 days from the sowing of the seed. When this is done a great proportion of the plants will start branches from the axils of the cotyledons; these usually develop blossoms in the third to the fifth node and produce fruit much lower than in a normal plant. It is questionable if there is any gain in time from seed to fruit by this method, but it enables one to get older plants of a size which it is practicable to transplant to the field.

In most cases it will be found more profitable and satisfactory so to grow the plants that by the time they can be safely set out of doors they will be in vigorous condition, about 6 to 10 inches tall, stout, healthy and well hardened off. Such plants will ripen fruit nearly, and often quite as early as older ones and will produce a constant succession of fruit, instead of ripening a single cluster or two and then no more until they have made a new growth.

For late summer and early fall. It is generally true in the South and often equally so in the North, that there is a more eager local demand for tomatoes in the late summer and fall months, after most of the spring set plants have ceased bearing, than in early summer. In Michigan I have often been able to get more for choice fruit in late October and in November than the best Floridas were sold for in May or early June, and certainly in the South the home use of fresh tomatoes should not be confined to spring set plants. For the fall crop in the South seed may be sown in late spring or up to the middle of July, in beds shaded with frames, covered with lath nailed 3 to 4 inches apart and the plants set in the field about 40 days from sowing, the same care being taken to put the ground into good condition as is recommended for the spring planted crop.

A second plan, which has sometimes given most excellent results, is to cut back spring set plants which have ripened some fruit but which are not completely exhausted, to mere stubs, and spade up the ground about them so as to cut most of the roots, water thoroughly and cover the ground with a mulch of straw. Most of the plants so treated will start a new and vigorous growth and give most satisfactory returns.

Fruit at least expenditure of labor. When this is the great desideratum, many growers omit the hotbed and even the pricking out, sowing the seed as early as they judge the plants will be safe from frost, and broadcast, either in cold-frames or in uncovered beds, at the rate of 50 to 150 to the square foot and transplanting directly to the field. Or they may be advantageously sown in broad drills either by the use of the pepper-box arrangement suggested on page 60, or a garden drill adjusted to sow a broad row. In Maryland and the adjoining states, as well as in some places in the West, most of the plants for crops for the canners are grown in this way and at a cost of 40 cents or even less a 1,000. The seed should be sown so that it will be from 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart and the plants thinned as soon as they are up so that they will be at least 1/2 inch apart. Where seed is sown early with no provision for protection from the frost it is always well to make other sowings as soon as the last begins to break ground in order to furnish reserve plants, if the earlier sown lots be destroyed by frost. Others even sow the seed in place in the field, thinning out to a single one in a hill when the plants are about 2 inches high. Some of the largest yields I have ever known have been raised in this way, but the fruit is late in maturing and generally the method is not so satisfactory as starting the plants where they can be given some protection, and transplanting them to the field.

Plants for the home garden. These may be grown in pots or boxes set in the sunniest spot available and treated as has been described. In this way plants, equal to any, may be grown without the aid of either hotbed or greenhouse. It will generally be more satisfactory, however, to secure the dozen or two plants needed from some one who has grown them in quantity than to grow so small a lot by themselves. In selecting plants, take those which are short, stiff, hard, and dark green in color with some purple color on the lower part of the stem rather than those which are softer and of a brighter green, or those in which the foliage is of a yellowish green; but in selection it must be remembered that varieties differ as to the color of foliage, so that there may be a difference in shade which is not due to conditions.

Plants under glass. If to be grown in pots or boxes, “prick out,” when small, into three-inch pots and as they grow re-pot several times so that when set in the pots or beds in which they are to fruit, they are stout plants 12 to 16 inches high. Plants propagated from cuttings give much better returns relatively under glass than out of doors.