Craig’s intro to this article
Carolyn and I both got to know great author and historian and friend Andrew Smith. He was responsible for ensuring that “Livingston and the Tomato” was finally back in print, and has a host of fascinating historical book on a variety of topics. We were so delighted that he penned the following article for our humble little newsletter.
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Early American Tomato Varieties
by Andrew Smith
The tomato plan originated in the coastal highlands of Peru, Ecuador and northern Chili. Of the nine species of Lycopersicon, only two, L. esculentum and L. pimpinefolium produce fruit that are edible. The fruit of wild tomato plants (L. Esculentum) are similar to today’s cherry tomato varieties. Through some unknown means the tomato migrated to Central America. Mayan and other Mesoamerican peoples domesticated the plant and used its fruit in their cookery. They capitalized upon a mutation which produced large lumpy fruit. By the 16th century, tomatoes were cultivated at least in the southern part of Mexico. The Spanish first encountered them after Hernan Cortez began his conquest of Mexico in 1519. The Spanish then introduced the tomato into the Caribbean and the Philippines. From the Philippines, its culture dispersed to Southeast Asia, and ultimately the rest of Asia. Through the Spanish, the tomato was also disseminated into Italy and Spain where it was quickly dispersed throughout Continental Europe.
The first known reference to tomatoes in what is today the United States was published in Botanologia (London, 1710) by William Salmon, who reportedly saw them growing in “Carolina” in the late 1680’s. Within a hundred years, tomatoes were grown and consumed in all regions of the nation. They were particularly prominent in North and South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, and probably in Georgia and Alabama.
In 1793, Charles Willson Peale, a portrait painter and the creator of one of America’s first museums in Philadelphia, received “Red Tomato” seeds in a shipment of “a number of subjects of Natural Science” from France. He gave them to his twelve-year-old son, Rubens Peale, who planted them in his garden and gave seeds to Cuthbert and David Landreth. In the 1790’s, the Landreths sold fruits and vegetables from a garden stall by the side of the old Philadelphia courthouse. They sold tomatoes to the French immigrants, but there was little demand from others. By 1800, tomato seeds were also sold in Philadelphia by John Lithen and Bernard M’Mahon. In New York, they were sold in 1807 by Grant Thorburn who established a seed farm and began selling seeds shortly after the turn of the century. Seeds were sold in Baltimore by 1810 and in Boston by 1827. By the 1830’s, tomato seeds were sold throughout the country.
Specific tomato varieties were rarely listed or described in early broadsides and seed catalogs, but many different types of tomatoes were grown in the United States. For instance, Thomas Jefferson exported tomato seeds from France during the early 1780’s to America. While president (1801-9), he noted that tomatoes were sold by market gardeners in Washington. After he retired to Monticello, General John Mason sent him some “Spanish” tomato seeds, whose fruit was “very much larger than common kinds.” Jefferson also planted “dwarf” tomatoes, by which he may have been referring to cherry tomatoes. In 1824, he imported seeds from Mexico. Jefferson was not alone in the quest to explore the diversity of the tomato.
During the 1820’s, large and small varieties with red and yellow colored fruit were noted in agricultural periodicals and advertisements. During the 1830’s, currant tomatoes (L. pimpinellifolium) were found growing wild along the banks of the Mississippi river. By the mid-1830’s, the number of varieties spiraled to several types differing in size, shape and color. In 1835, self-proclaimed botanist and medical practitioner Constantine Rafinesque enumerated fourteen varieties, although, based upon his descriptions, it is difficult to determine the distinctions among many of them. In 1840, the Geneses Farmer advertised large, red, large yellow, small red cherry and Cuba or Spanish tomatoes. More varieties appeared as the decade progressed, such as pear-shaped, cluster, preserving, fig-shaped, yellow cherry and egg-shaped varieties.
Of special interest to tomato growers was a variety brought back from the South Pacific in 1841. An American Exploring Expedition had run across some tomatoes, which were dubbed “Fegee” tomatoes. A sailor had sent seeds back to a friend in Philadelphia, while Charles Wilkes, the Captain of the expedition, sent seeds to the Secretary of the Navy, James Pauling, who evidently dispersed them throughout the United States. They had no discernable effect upon tomato culture, and died out after a few years of cultivation. This variety was later incorrectly identified as the forerunner of the Fejee tomato, which became a popular variety after the Civil War. Despite its name, this later variety originated in Italy.
Several plants advertised as tomato varieties in the 1850’s were not botanically related to Lycopersicon at all, including the Tree Tomato, imported from France around 1859, and the Cape Gooseberry. This suggests that by the 1850’s the name tomato was in such high esteem that it was used to sell other plants. Despite this inflation in the number of purported tomato types, the American Agriculturist maintained that four varieties were most esteemed and cultivated. The large smooth-skinned red, an excellent variety, differed “from all other large sots, in having a smooth skin entirely free from protuberances or inequalities of any kind.” The common large red, with the fruit depressed at both ends, furrowed on the sides, and varying in circumference, from three to eighteen inches, “was a prolific bearer” and was “universally cultivated.” The pear-shaped was “much smaller than either of the preceding, very fleshy, and contained fewer seeds.” The cherry-shaped red has a beautiful little fruit, much resembling a cherry in size and appearance. While some varieties were considered oddities or curiosities, there was a nascent relationship between some varieties and their culinary usage. Red tomatoes were best for ketchup and cooking. Fig-shaped tomatoes were frequently recommended for making confectionary. Pear-shaped, cherry-shaped, yellow types, and the pink-red tomatoes were used for pickling.
Precisely what these varieties looked and tasted like is unknown. Few paintings or illustration s of specific varieties have been located. Vegetables were never a popular subject for still-life artists, and only four American paintings containing tomatoes are known to have survived. These paintings, one by Raphaelle Peale (the brother of Rubens Peale) dated to about 1795, one by an unknown artist painted about 1840, and two by Paul Lacroix painted in 1863 and 1865, show dramatic changes in the tomato’s shape. Peale’s tomato is extremely ribbed and lumpy; the next is less lumpy, but extremely large; and Lacroix’s tomatoes are much smoother and more closely resemble today’s varieties.
Tomatoes sold in the market were described as “thick-skinned, hollow subjects, which bounced like a football.” Farmers and gardeners slowly bred tomatoes with different characteristics, such as a round shape, smooth skin, solid flesh and ripeness all over. Also, American farmers consciously began breeding tomatoes which ripened earlier and yielded more abundantly. In Rochester, New York, J. Slater began saving seeds from the roundest and smoothest tomatoes he could find. His tomatoes were neither flat nor wrinkled, “but as round as an orange, and as smooth and as large as the largest Northern Spy apple.” Dr. T. J. Hand, originally from Sing Sing, New York, began crossing the small cherry tomato with larger, lumpy varieties. The benefits of these breeding efforts began to bear fruit just after the Civil War. Hand’s efforts were rewarded when he ended with a tomato with a solid mass of flesh and juice, with small seeds and smooth skin. Under the name Trophy tomato, its success was unbounded with the promotor, Colonel George Waring, who sold seeds for 25 cents apiece.
During and after the Civil War, the number of tomato varieties increased spectacularly. Fearing Burr’s Field and Garden Vegetables of America, initially published in 1863, reflected his experience as a seedsman and gardener in Massachusetts. He listed 22 tomato varieties, only one of which was not botanically within the Lycopersicon genus. His 1865 edition included two more varieties. Alexander Livingston, who, as a child, was told by his mother that tomatoes were poisonous, became one of the most important developers of tomato varieties in America. By adhering to the principle of single plant selection to clearly define demands in the tomato trade, he developed or improved thirteen major varieties from 1870 to 1893. Among the more important were paragon, acme, perfection, golden Queen, Livingston’s Favorite, Beauty and Stone tomatoes.
In 1866, Liberty Hyde Bailey located and tested seventy-six varieties sold by seedsmen. The following year he included 179 sorts from American, British, French and German seedsmen. This increase was due to several factors: the development of many new American varieties; the introduction of renamed European varieties; the tendency of seedsmen to list as distinct varieties those which differed little from already named ones; and the reluctance of seedsmen to remove duplicates from their list because of customer loyalty to particular names.
Nearly all 19th century tomato varieties were indeterminate, with the exception of “dwarf” or “tree” tomatoes such as Dwarf Champion. The plants were long and straggly, and their fruit continued to set until the frost destroyed the plant. In 1914, Bert Croft found by chance a seedling that was determinant and self-topping. It was a spontaneous mutation which occurred in a tomato plant in Florida which caused the plant “to grow in an orderly, compact, determinate fashion.” It was called the “Cooper Special” after C.D. Cooper from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, who marketed it. This mutation has benefited tomato-improvement programs ever since, and most tomato seeds available today, except for the heirloom varieties, are determinate.
Unfortunately, few of the tomato varieties cultivated in America before the Civil War have survived. The Oliver Kelly Farm in Elk River, administered by the Minnesota Historical Society, purports to grow several tomato varieties that date to the 1850’s. heirloom seeds from the latter part of the 19th century are available today through several different seed companies and organizations. (Please see article on USDA varieties in this issue of Off the Vine. Eds.) Seed Savers Exchange lists several thousand varieties, available to members, and Southern Exposure Seed Company in Earlysville, VA. documents the history of many important heirloom varieties. There are several other seed companies that carry heirloom varieties. Despite the efforts of SSE and others, large numbers of tomato varieties known to have existed during the 19th century have disappeared.
Bibliography
In the interest of space we won’t print the 11 references which accompany this article. If any of our subscribers have a particular interest in the original literature citations, Carolyn will be pleased to provide the bibliography to those folks
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Craig’s comments after reading the above for the first time in a long time
Wow, there is so much to absorb from this really entertaining, informative article. To start, I must say that the phrase at the very end - Bibliography - will remain unfulfilled. Carolyn didn’t share that list with me. I would highly recommend these books from Andrew Smith for additional info and an expansion on the above - The Tomato in America, by Andrew F Smith, published 1994, and Livingston and the Tomato, in which Andrew republished Alexander Livingston’s book with lots of additional information that follows Livingston’s text.
The main takeaway, to me, is that though we seem to have relocated quite a few of the Livingston varieties (Mike Dunton and I actually met and became friends over our individual efforts to find them), many of the very earliest varieties have indeed been lost - at least under the names they were originally called. Most varieties between 1850 and 1880 were not likely very refined, stable varieties, however, so the loss is probably not all that devastating. When I grew Early Large Red (from Oliver Kelly Farm), I feel as if I did indeed view what many of those earliest tomatoes looked like - flat, convoluted, corrugated, pleated, folded, partially hollow - and not particularly appealing!
