The Manufacture of Tomato Products / Including whole tomato pulp or puree, tomato catsup, chili sauce, tomato soup, trimming pulp

by W. G. Hier

Obtaining a good quality of tomatoes at a price which is not prohibitive is a problem which in many localities is becoming more difficult to canners and catsup makers each year. Every experienced manufacturer knows that regardless of the expertness with which he may work up his tomatoes into the finished product, he cannot expect to get good quality unless he has good stock to begin with. It is true that by using intelligence and extreme care in the manufacturing processes one manufacturer will make better pulp or catsup from tomatoes of fair quality than another man can get from the best quality of stock. This same care and intelligence applied, however, in working up high quality tomatoes will probably show a greater difference in the finished products than was apparent in the tomatoes from which these products were made; in other words, the goodness of good tomatoes becomes accentuated by the manufacturing process.

In order to insure as large a proportion as possible of good quality stock, as well as a good yield per acre in tonnage, manufacturers are each year realizing the necessity of closer co-operation with the farmer. Where in growing tomatoes under contract it was formerly largely up to the farmer to buy his seed and raise his plants and set them out, it is now the usual custom to supply the farmer with seed of the desired variety and of high germination test, and in many cases to go a step farther and supply him with plants six to eight inches high, ready for setting out in the field. Unquestionably, the best results are secured by growing the plants for the farmer. The average farmer does not go about the raising of his plants in an intelligent way, and he will not devote the time to the plant-raising business that it should have.

Plant Raising

Most packers are agreed that the best plant is raised by starting the seeds in rows in hot beds, transplanting to cold frames when they are two to four inches high to harden them and make them stocky, and again transplanting to the field when the plants are six to eight inches high. This method produces a dark green, bushy, thick-stemmed plant of high vitality, which is so essential to a good yield. What a contrast to the average plant raised by the farmer—the seed often broadcasted, either in a hot bed or in a spot in the garden where the soil has not been specially prepared for plant raising, and when the plants, a large number of which are thin, pale green, and spindly looking, attain a height of anywhere from six inches to a foot they are all set out in the field and allowed to struggle along as best they can. When one looks at the kind of plants that are so often set out he can see at least one reason why yields of from three to seven tons per acre are so often obtained from ground which should yield twice that much, and why the plants are easy victims to blight and other diseases.

A prominent canner recently told me that by raising the plants for his farmers he had increased the average yield 4 tons per acre.

Use of Fertilizer

So many articles have been written on tomato culture for canning plants by experienced horticulturists that the subject will not be dealt with extensively here. In these articles emphasis is usually laid on the desirability of the use of commercial fertilizer, not only to increase the yield, but to hasten the maturing of the crop so that a large proportion of it can be harvested before frost.

My experience testifies to the wisdom of this in practically all cases, and with late maturing varieties such as the Stone tomato, in regions subject to early frost, and especially where planted on low ground, it is absolutely essential that fertilizer be used if a good percentage of the crop is to be harvested.

Methods in East and West

In the Tri-States—that is, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey—quite a different situation exists from that in the middle west or far west. The western packer has practically all of his tomatoes grown under contract, while the Tri-State packer, although he tries to contract as much acreage or tonnage as possible at a reasonable figure, is up against the competitive buying of the open market for a large proportion of his raw stock, as there are always a large number of farmers who are willing to gamble that the coming season will be a good one for playing the open market. In this case the buyer usually cannot be as particular about the quality of the tomatoes he buys as can the packer who has his tomatoes all grown under contract at a specified price, and who can exercise supervision over his farmers. This is particularly true in seasons of short crop, when the grower sells his tomatoes on the market and can afford to be very independent, and buyers are wildly forcing up the price by competitive bidding, and taking whatever they can get. Even if the eastern grower is under contract for his entire crop, if the crop is short, and high prices are prevailing on the market, it is the exceptional grower who will live up to his contract, and often to get an excuse for breaking his contract he will deliver very poor tomatoes right along in the hope that they will be objected to, thus giving him the liberty of disposing of them elsewhere.