3 JULY 1941, Page 14

In the Garden

There are several methods of saving tomato-seed. The best I have seen is also the simplest. Fruit is taken from selected plants (I have seen a plant of Plumpton King recently, bearing fifty tomatoes to a truss) after it is dead ripe. The tomatoes are then packed into seed-boxes of soil, which should just cover them. The boxes are then left in a dry warm place—on the greenhouse shelf preferably—for the rest of the summer. Under sun the tomatoes will gradually wizen, becoming completely juiceless and fleshless, so that finally only the sun-dried seed remains. Two other tips : spray plants in the early morning with clear tepid water and regard with suspicion any plant that tries to send out