The trouble with your tomato plants is that life is too easy for them, that they have so much moisture and plant food that they can grow comfortably and rapidly without thought of the future.  So, because they do not have to think of making fruit, the blossoms drop off.  This is a very common occurrence with tomatoes, especially in home gardens where the owners have not the experience or the information on the subject that they might have, and give the tomatoes too much water.  Many other plants act the same way and will not set fruit while they can grow easily, and only begin to produce when they have made a great growth or when moisture begins to get a little short.  If you irrigate the tomatoes, stop, and put no more water on until the plant begins to set fruit as if it meant business, or gives some sign that water would be appreciated.  If the ground is naturally moist you will have to wait until the plants make more growth and the weather gets drier and hotter, and the plants will then set fruit.  Some growers have found that by trimming up the vine and staking it, the fruit sets much more readily.

Part III.  Grains and Forage Crops

Wants Us to Do the Whole Thing.

Can you help, me to determine a good product to plant somewhere in California; also what particular section would be most suitable for the raising of that which you would advise?  I wish a crop of permanent nature (as orchard trees).  I also desire advice on some product which would give a quick return while I am waiting on the more permanent one to mature and bear.  I have not procured land yet, and am thinking seriously of trying to get government land, therefore, you are free to give me the best location for the raising of that which you would, suggest.  I want a money-making product and one which is not already overdone.

The choice of crops depends quite as much upon the market demand and opportunity as it does upon the suitability of the soil and local climate.  Choice of crops indeed involves almost the whole business of farming, and although we can sometimes give a man useful suggestions as to the growth of plants and the protection of plants from enemies, we cannot undertake to plan his farming business for him.  He must form his own opinions as to what will be most marketable, and therefore profitable, if he succeeds in getting a good article for sale.  A wise man at the East once said:  “You can advise a man to do almost anything.  You can even select a wife for him, but never commit the indiscretion of advising him what to grow to make money.  That is a matter he has to determine for himself.”

Pasturing Young Grain.

Would it be advisable to herd milch cows for a few hours each day on a field of black oats which is to be grown for hay?  The oats are now about four inches high and rank, as the land was pastured last year.  The land is sandy, rolling soil and will soon be dry enough so that the cows would not injure the plants.  The idea is that the leaves which are green now will all dry up and are really not the growth which is cut for hay; therefore, I should think it would do no harm to feed it down a bit.