Preparation of the Soil
The proper preparation of the soil before setting the plants is one of
the most essential points in successful tomato culture. The soil should
be put into the best possible physical condition and to the greatest
practicable depth. How this can be best accomplished will vary greatly
with different soils and the facilities at the command of the planter.
My practice on a heavy, dry soil is to plow shallow as early in the
spring as the ground is fit to work, and then work and re-work the
surface so as to make it as fine as possible.
If I am to use any manure which is at all coarse, it is well worked in
at this time. A week or 10 days before I expect to set the plants I
again plow, and to as great a depth as practicable, without turning up
much of the sub-soil, and if this has not been done within two years,
follow in the furrows with a sub-soil plow which loosens, but does not
bring the sub-soil to the surface. Then I work and re-work the surface,
at the same time working in any dressing of well-rotted manure, ashes or
commercial fertilizer that I want to use. I never regret going over the
field again, if by so doing I can improve its condition in the least. On
a lighter soil it might be better to compact rather than loosen as much
as would give the best results with clay, but always and everywhere the
soil should be made fine, friable and uniform in condition, to the
greatest depth possible.
One of the most successful growers has said that if he could afford to
spend but two days' time on a patch of tomatoes he would use a day and a
half of the two days in fitting the ground before he set the plants. It
is my opinion that any working of the ground that serves to get it into
better mechanical condition, if done economically, will not only
increase the yield, but to such an extent as to lower the cost a bushel.
T. B. Terry's teaching of the necessity for working and re-working the
soil, if one would have the largest crops of potatoes of the best
quality, is even more applicable to the culture of tomatoes.
=Home garden.=--Here there is no excuse for setting plants in hard,
lumpy soil. It should be worked and re-worked, not simply once or twice,
but once or twice after it has been thoroughly worked. In short, the
tomato bed should be made as friable as it is possible to make it and to
as great a depth as the character of the sub-soil will permit.
=Under glass.=--I would strongly advise that soil for tomatoes, whether
it is to be used in solid beds or in pots or boxes, be thoroughly
sterilized by piling it not over 15 inches deep or wide over iron pipes
perforated with two lines of holes about one-sixteenth inch in diameter
and 2 inches apart and filled with steam for at least a half hour. It
can be sterilized, but far less effectively, by thorough wetting with
boiling water. It should always be well stirred and aired before the
plants are set in it.
=Starting plants.=--From about the latitude of New York city southward,
it is possible to secure large yields from plants grown from seed sown
in place in the field, and one often sees volunteer plants which have
sprung up as weeds carrying as much or more fruit than most carefully
grown transplanted ones beside them. In many sections tomatoes are grown
in large areas for canning factories, and as a farm rather than a market
garden crop, individual farmers planting from 10 to 100 acres; and to
start and transplant to the field the 25,000 to 30,000 plants necessary
for a ten-acre field seems a great undertaking. Tomato plants, however,
when young, are of rather weak and tender growth, and need more careful
culture than can be readily given in the open field; and, again, the
demand of the market, even at the canning factories, is for delivery of
the crop earlier than it can be produced by sowing the seed in the
field.
For these reasons it is almost the universal custom of successful
growers to use plants started under glass or in seed-beds where
conditions of heat and moisture can be somewhat under control. I
believe, however, that the failure to secure a maximum yield is more
often due to defective methods of starting, handling and setting the
plants than to any other single cause. In sections where tomatoes are
largely grown there are usually men who make a business of starting
plants and offering them for sale at prices running from $1 or even as
low as 40 cents, up to $8 and $10 a 1,000, according to their age and
the way they are grown; but generally, it will be found more
advantageous for the planter to start his plants on or near the field
where they are to be grown.
=Tomato plants from cuttings= may be easily grown, but such plants, when
planted in the open ground, do not yield as much fruit as seedlings nor
is this apt to be of so good quality; so that, in practice, seedlings
only are used for outside crops. Under glass, plants from cuttings do
relatively better and some growers prefer them, as they commence to
fruit earlier and do not make so rank a growth.
Seedlings can be most easily started and grown, at least up to the time
of pricking out, in light, well-ventilated greenhouses, and many large
growers have them for this specific purpose. Houses for starting tomato
plants should be so situated as to be fully exposed to the sun and not
shaded in any way; be provided with heating apparatus by which a night
temperature of 60 and up to one of 80° F. in the day can be maintained
even in the coldest weather and darkest days likely to occur for 60 to
90 days before the plants can be safely set out in the open field; and
the houses should be well glazed and ventilated.
Houses well suited for this purpose are often built of hotbed sash with
no frame but a simple ridge-board and sides 1 or 2 feet high, head room
being gained by a central sunken path and the sash so fastened in place
that they may be easily lifted to give ventilation or entirely removed
to give full exposure to sunshine, or for storing when the house is not
needed. Hotbed sash 3×6 feet with side-bars projecting at the ends to
facilitate fastening them in place are usually kept by dealers, who
offer them at from $1.50 to $3 each, according to the quality of the
material used.
A hot water heating apparatus is the best, but often one can use a
brick furnace or an iron heating stove, connected with a flue of sewer
or drain-pipe that will answer very well and cost much less. It requires
but 6 to 10 square feet of bench to start plants enough for an acre, and
a house costing only from $25 to $50 will enable one to grow plants
enough for 20 acres up to the stage when they can be pricked out into
sash or cloth-covered cold-frames in which they can be grown on to the
size best suited for setting in the field. When a grower plants less
than 5 acres it is often better for him to sow his seed in flats or
shallow boxes and arrange to have these cared for in some neighboring
greenhouse for the 10 to 20 days before they can be pricked out.