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No attempt has been made toward complete citation of reference. Those given will lead to others making possible a full survey of the extensive literature.
The Tomato
I
THE TOMATO IS A GREAT FOOD
AND CROP PLANT
Vegetable, Fruit or Berry,—what is the tomato? A standard query this is and many an argument has raged about it. The answer is easy. It is all three. By culture and use, it is a vegetable; botanically it is a fruit and among the fruits, it is a berry being indehiscent (non-shedding), pulpy, with one or more seeds that are not stones. And they say the tomato is more truly a berry than the raspberry.
But that doesn't make much difference. The thing that matters is that people like the tomato. It is easy to grow and nearly every home garden has it. It is good to look upon—shapely, colorful and of glossy sheen. A trained single stem plant with ripening fruit is a genuine ornament in the garden. It is most gratifying to the palate, fresh or cooked; soft and grainy, smooth and juicy in texture, sweet and tart and with an appealing flavor all of its own that few fail to relish. As juice or cocktail, adding color and flavor to soup, as condiment or as side dish with the entree, as salad freshly sliced or in jell, it is welcome with almost every course and some ingenious chef or, more likely, some clever housewife will, one of these days, fashion from it the dessert supreme.