How to Improve Our Tomatoes.

 The present kinds could be much improved by selecting our
own seed, always keeping in mind the points desired. Selecting
seed from fruit that is not ripe makes the fruit ripen earlier, but
at the expense of the vigor of the plant and size of fruit.* Selecting
 *E. S. Goff, Wis. Agrl. Exp. Sta. 8th Ann. Rep., p. 152.
from diseased plants produces a predisposition in the progeny to
take the disease. Selecting seed from culls or from fruit in any
way defective will tend to reproduce this character. It would
not be well to plant several varieties together if one wishes "to
raise seed. The varieties mix to such an extent that the progeny
v ill not be like either parent, and often it happens that the result
of such mixing gives a much inferior fruit. This is due to the
tendency that fruits have to revert to the ancient parent; a ten-
dency known in breeding as atavism.
 The results of taking the seed for six successive generations
from tomatoes not ripe as compared with seed taken from fully
ripe tomatoes of the same variety showed that the amount of
foliage and stems by weight was less than half as much in the
plants from immature seed as from plants from ripe seed. The
comparison of the number of fruits showed those from the
immature seed more than double that of the same number of
plants from mature seed. The average weight of the individual
fruit of the immature seed was found to be about an eleventh less
than that of the mature fruit. Selecting green tomatoes for seed
had a tendency to make the fruit ripen earlier, but with this
there was a loss in firmness and in keeping qualities. Both
of these are essential elements and must not be looked upon too
lightly.
 Another important pointlis that immature seed is much less
liable to germinate. Fruit growers frequently complain of par-
ticular kinds running out." From what has been said in re-
gard to breeding, it will be seen that it is quite out of the normal
for them to do otherwise. The particular surroundings will
cause some point to be fostered at the expense of others. In the
above illustration of choosing green fruit for seed, at the end of
six generations the plants from the immature seed produced