The ground should be well manured, but if the soil is light it can be overdone, as the plant will run too much to vine and be late in producing fruit. I have found that, though there is a general impression that tomatoes do best on a light, sandy soil, the best tomatoes I have ever raised have been on my poorest and heaviest ground. On a plot of ground where the plow turned up the yellow clay at a depth of five or six inches, I have had the ground covered; covered so that you could hardly put your foot down anywhere in the patch without treading on a tomato, and not a cracked or rotten one among them. At another time I planted all the plants there were at that time of the now famous Turner Hybrid, in a patch of clay soil where young nursery trees had been grown for five years, and you can ask any nursery-man how much that leaves in the soil. Yet this patch produced tomatoes which astonished all beholders and led to its being placed at once upon the market; and right here I would say that the flavor and appearance of this variety have been so fine with me that I have obtained double price for my tomatoes since I have been growing it. In the last ten years I have had the handling of the first stock of three new tomatoes, each one of which has seemed near perfection when originated, yet each has been much superior to its predecessor. I mention this only to show how the craft of “assisting nature,” or gardening, is always progressing and gaining new interest in the mind of the gardener. There is a constant charm about it, that, once it takes possession of you, never lets go. If the full-sized, green and partly ripe tomatoes are picked off when there is danger of frost, and placed under the sash of the cold frame, or on the floor of the cellar, they will ripen gradually, and though not of very fine quality, may be had fresh almost until Christmas; they must, of course, be entirely green when picked, to consume so much time in ripening.