gg, the
Golden Nugget, Vick's Criterion, etc.--are known to have originated from
crosses of the Pear and I think that most, if not all, the garden sorts
in which the longitudinal diameter of the fruit is greater than its
transverse diameter owe this form to crosses with _L. pyriforme_.

=Cultivated varieties= (_L. esculentum_).--This is commonly used as the
botanical name of our cultivated varieties, rather than as the name of a
distinct species. In western South America, however, there is found
growing a wild plant of Lycopersicum which differs from the other
recognized species in being more compact in growth, with fewer branches
and larger leaves, and carrying an immense burden of fruit borne in
large clusters. The fruit is larger than that of the other species but
much smaller than that of our cultivated sorts; is very irregular in
shape, always with distinct sutures, and often deeply corrugated and
bright red in color. The walls are thin; the flesh is soft, with a
distinct sharp, acid flavor much less agreeable than that of our
cultivated forms of garden tomatoes.

[Illustration: FIG. 9--ONE OF THE FIRST ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TOMATO
_Poma amoris_, (_Pomum aureum_), (_Lycopersicum_), 1581]

[Illustration: FIG. 10--AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION OF THE TOMATO (From
Morrison's "Historia Universalis," 1680)]

This has commonly been regarded by botanists as a degenerate form of our
garden tomatoes, rather than as an original species, but I find that,
like _L. cerasiforme_ and _L. pyriforme_, it is quite fixed under
cultivation, except as crossed with other species or with our garden
varieties, and I believe it to be the original species from which our
cultured sorts have been developed, by crossing and selection. Such
crosses probably were made either naturally or by natives before the
tomato was discovered by Europeans. The earliest prints we have of the
tomato (Figs. 9 and 10) are far more like the fruit of this plant than
that of _L. cerasiforme_, and the prints of many of the earliest garden
varieties and of some sorts which are still cultivated in southern
Europe, for use in soups, are like it not only in size and form, but in
flavor. These facts make it seem far more probable that our cultivated
sorts have come, by crossing, between this and other species rather than
by simple development from _L. cerasiforme_.

Prof. E. S. Goff, of Wisconsin, who has made a most careful study of the
tomato, expressed the same opinion,