Tomatoes, Beans, Onions. A Cheap Hot House

Too much stress cannot be put upon the importance of the tomato as a garden crop for South Dakota. There is no reason for the annual importation of hundreds of bushels of this fruit which could be produced at home, and the money saved. With a view of aiding the prospective grower in the selection of varieties an extensive trial of the several kinds of tomatoes was made. In these tests all the varieties under consideration were treated as nearly alike as possible. All were sown upon the same day, March 1.5, in soil of uniform character; were shifted to pots of various sizes at the same time, i.e., to 3-inch pots April 6; 4-inch pots May 4; and were all set in the field on the same day, May 31. The subsequent culture was the same for all cases of variety tests. The harvesting and weighing were done with equal care and precision. The following table Varieties Compared, explains itself. The yield, size and color of the various sorts can be seen at a glance. The relative earliness of the varieties can be determined from the date of the ripening of the fruit. The comparison of the varieties as to yield per acre is just, because the conditions were those of a commercial patch, and the total area occupied was considerably more than an acre. In all cases the yield of the plants, as recorded in each test, unless otherwise stated, is that of ripe fruit only, and all plants used in the tests were grown under the same conditions and treated the same, prior to planting in the field, as those used in the general variety test, unless otherwise stated in the description of a particular experiment