Varieties That Have Persevered – How Things Look in 2005

Re-reading this article is a bit painful for me - aside from the occasional cringe at my long, wordy sentences and some grammatical miscues, it appears to be pointless! I believe that the intent was to start the process of listing the significant commercial, non hybrid tomato introductions over the years, and comment on whether a particular variety still exists.

The lengthy, dense tomato variety and introduction date paragraphs would have worked much better in table format – but rather than spend time creating those now, I will just provide some updated information on the specific varieties (if the variety is well known/still in existence, I won’t discuss it below).

Acme – the version from the USDA was crossed, and the accession that a SSE member got from Germany appears to be too large and irregular to show us what Acme may have been like – it therefore may be obsolete as originally released. The closest varieties still around could be Alpha Pink and Fordhook First, both found in the USDA collection and grown out.

Golden Queen – the USDA accession matches the catalog descriptions; many seed companies sold a variety named Golden Queen that was obviously not the actual variety. This is a fine tomato and it is good to have it back!

Abraham Lincoln – this is one of those great tomato mysteries. The original 1923 Buckbee catalog description lists a tomato that is large fruited, red and is produced on a vigorous indeterminate plant with “bronze” foliage. All accessions in seed catalogs produce medium sized red fruit on a semi-determinate plant, indicating loss of the variety through crossing over the years. The USDA accession provided a vigorous indeterminate plant with large red fruit, but without the bronze foliage. A Garden Web member claims that he has discovered the bronze foliaged version – stay tuned for further updates.

Mikado (Turner’s Hybrid) – this is another interesting tomato mystery. Listed as the first commercially available, large fruited pink potato leaf variety in the late 1800’s, some speculate that Brandywine could be a selection of or renaming of Mikado. The accessions from the USDA were mixed – regular leaf red or pink fruit, potato leaf red or pink fruit – but the pink fruit were medium sized only. A tomato trial periodical that I recently purchased indicates that Mikado in trial in the early 1900’s produced fruit in the 6-8 ounce range – so perhaps the pink potato leaf selection from the USDA stock seed is in fact what it looked like. I am regrowing it for another look in 2005.

Honor Bright – Since no tomato of this name is known in any collections, we can only surmise that the variety known as Lutescent bears at least a close resemblance to Honor Bright.

The following were still considered “missing” when I wrote the original article in 1994:

Trophy – this was obtained from the USDA collection and is now in reasonably wide circulation. The Michigan State Bulletin of the 1930’s indicates that Trophy in trial by them was very variable, so it is unlikely that we are seeing Trophy today exactly as it was when released.

Early Conqueror – This was obtained from the USDA collection and grew out to be a lumpy, very oddly shaped, flat, large red tomato that certainly appears to be an older, unrefined variety. Some descriptions from catalogs note tiny yellow or gold flecks on the skin; I did not notice these when I grew it.

Triumph – The USDA accession was an unexceptional, medium to medium small red tomato of no particular positive attributes.

Alpha – The USDA accession was a short growing, compact potato leaf variety giving smallish to medium oblate red fruit that were not exceptional – this did match the description in the Michigan State Bulletin.

Paragon – We did find this in the USDA collection, and it produced what was expected – a medium sized red tomato. This variety is quite historic, being Alexander Livingston’s first commercially developed release. He used what was then a new principle of tomato improvement – single plant selections, rather than single fruit selections.

Favorite – This was a very fortunate find in the USDA collection, providing one of the better of the older commercial varieties. It is very productive, and produces smooth medium sized red fruit with excellent flavor.

Optimus – This old Ferry More variety was also in the USDA collection waiting to be grown out, and is very similar to Favorite in appearance and flavor. It is a very good variety.

Beauty – We were also pleased to locate this highly favored historic variety in the USDA collection. It is considered the pride of Livingston’s tomato release program. The vigorous plants produce smooth, medium sized sweet pink fruit which match the old catalog descriptions.

Magnus – Perhaps because the 1900 Livingston was the first old seed catalog that I purchased, and Magnus was the cover variety (it was introduced that year), it was thrilling to find this in the USDA collection. Though Carolyn and I were sent a very large pack of seeds, germination was very poor – in fact, Carolyn got the only potato leaf seedling in our efforts. From that plant we revived this fine variety. It is unusual in being a nearly round, medium sized pink potato leaf variety.

Dwarf Stone – We also found this variety, unusual in being a medium sized red fruited tomato on a Tree-type, compact determinate plant. It is well worth growing, particularly for those who need to use container growing techniques.

The above only scratched the surface on the old Commercial tomato varieties. As my old seed catalog collection has grown, I’ve identified and obtained dozens of other tomatoes to revive and share with other gardening enthusiasts.