s they are often put together by the package dealers. Fig. 30
shows tomatoes as packed by the Ohio experiment station.

[Illustration: FIG. 30--GREENHOUSE TOMATOES PACKED FOR MARKET (By
courtesy Ohio Experiment Station)]

=Fruits after frost.=--Sometimes when there is a great quantity of
partially ripe and full grown green fruit on the vines which is liable
to be spoiled by an early fall frost, it can be saved by pulling the
vines and placing them in windrows and covering them with straw. Of
course the vines should be handled carefully to shake off as little
fruit as possible. If the freeze is followed by a spell of warm, dry
weather the fruit will ripen up so as to be quite equal to that shipped
in from a distance. A second plan is to pull the vines and hang them up
in a dry cellar or out-house, or lay them on the ground in an open
grove of trees, or beneath the trees of an adjoining orchard.

Still another plan is to gather the green fruit and spread it not more
than two to four fruits deep in hotbed frames, which are then covered
with sash. Local grocers are usually glad to pay good prices for this
late fruit, and in seasons of scarcity I have known canners to buy
thousands of bushels so ripened at better prices than they paid for the
main crop.

CHAPTER XV

Adaptation of Varieties

Whatever may be their botanical origin, the modern varieties of
cultivated tomatoes vary greatly in many respects, and while these
differences are always of importance their relative importance differs
with conditions. When the great desideratum is the largest possible
yield of salable fruit at the least expenditure of labor, the qualities
of the vine may be the most important ones to be considered, while in
private gardens and for a critical home market and where closer
attention and better cultivation can be given, they may be of far less
importance than qualities of fruit.

=Habits of growth.=--Whether it be standard or dwarf, compact or
spreading, is sometimes of great importance as fitting the sorts for
certain soils and methods of culture. On heavy, moist, rich land, where
staking and pruning are essential to the production of fruit of the best
quality, it is of importance that we use sorts whose habits of growth
fit them for it; while on warm, sandy, well-drained land, staking and
pruning may be of little value, and a different habit of growth more
desirable. We have sorts in which the vine is relatively strong grow