cs of the root.=--The roots of the tomato plant, while
abundant in number, are short and can only gather food and water from a
limited area. A plant of garden bean, for instance, is not more than
half the size of one of the tomato, but its roots extend through the
soil to a greater distance, gather plant food from a greater bulk of
soil, seem better able to search out and gather the particular food
element which the plant needs than do those of the tomato. This
characteristic of the latter plant makes the composition of the soil as
to the proportion of easily available food elements of great importance.
Tomato roots are also exceedingly tender and incapable of penetrating a
hard and compact soil, so that the condition of the soil as to tilth is
of greater importance with regard to tomatoes than with most garden
vegetables.

Another characteristic of the tomato roots is that the period of their
active life is short. When young they are capable of transmitting water
and nutritive material very rapidly, but they soon become clogged and
inefficient to such an extent as to result in the starvation and death
of the plant. If the branches of such an exhausted plant be bent over
and covered with earth they will frequently start new roots and produce
a fresh crop of fruit, or if plants which have made a crop in the
greenhouse be transplanted to the garden and cut back, a new set of
roots will often develop and the plant will produce a second crop of
fruit which, in amount, often equals or exceeds the first one. But such
growths come only from new roots springing from the stem--never from an
extension of the old root system.

=Characteristics of the stem and leaves.=--The growth of the stem, and
leaves of the young tomato plant is very rapid and, the cellular
structure coarse, loose and open. A young branch is easily broken and
when this is done it shows scarcely any fibrous structure--simply a mass
of coarse cellular matter which while capable, when young, of
transmitting nutritive matter rapidly, soon becomes dogged and inert.
This structure not only makes the active life of the leaves short, like
that of the roots, but necessitates a fresh growth in order to continue
the fruitfulness of the plant and renders the leaves very susceptible to
injury from bacterial and fungous diseases. The rapid growth also
necessitates an abundance of sunlight.

=Characteristics of the blossom.=--The inflorescence of the tomato is
usually abun