In the North, you must have vigorous, stocky plants, well in advance of the season, and a warm quick soil, to get a good crop of tomatoes. Too much fresh stable manure will cause rank vine growth and delay fruiting, so that the soil should be fertilized a season in advance and the manure thoroughly rotted. At the time of planting it is well to apply a light dressing of nitrate of soda, as this gives better results than twice the application when given later at intervals up to August. At the South, tomatoes are grown in frames covered with unbleached sheeting by night and during cold snaps, but in the day this covering is rolled up and the plants are hardened by the air. Although tender to frost, the tomato vine is a fairly hardy plant, and will stand earlier field planting than is sometimes given it, if it does not get frost. We have proved by experiment that the yield is greatly increased by early transplanting. There is a profit in that. Tomatoes give earlier and better results where the vines are trained, but that is only possible in small gardens. Where the plants are grown for canning, little attention is given them after transplanting to the field. Losses from rot are of course much larger there, but this cannot well be avoided. In small gardens they are pruned to a single stem. Strong stakes are driven into the ground and cords are stretched between them horizontally at top and bottom. From these horizontal cords you may run perpendicular strings, to one of which each plant is tied. Plants pruned and tied up in this way, may be placed as close together as 18 inches, while if left to spread they require from three to four feet of space. By pruning is meant the pinching out of each side branch as it appears, compelling the plant to put all its growth into one parent stem. Some growers even go so far as to cut off the tops of the plant as soon as three clusters of fruit are formed. I have cut off whole branches where the vines were too thick, without apparent injury. All this decreases the quantity of fruit that each plant will produce, but it greatly increases the earliness of ripening, and the size and quality of the fruit. Besides, the plants may be grown so much closer that the loss in quantity is not so great as would at first appear.