lants 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 deg. 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 remove