Forbes School tomato club

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[booklet tied at top above title, with what appears to be white satiny ribbon]

FORBSSCHOOL TOMATO CLUB

[Image of tomato, appears to be "Beefsteak" or other variety of red slicing tomato, on the green vine, with a half-sliced tomato beside, cut side up. Rendering appears to be a print cut from another medium - possibly fabric, and attached to the cover.]

Verna Lee Stein [?] Cill

Green ville N.C. Pitt Co. R.F.D. #1.

Club Member No. - Club No. I.

1912

The Story of My Tomato Club:

When our Tomato Club started Mrs McKimmon from Raleigh Came to visit our SChool and got up The Club. In the spring we got a paper of seed from Miss E Vans the Leader of our Club and sawed [sowed] them in a hot bed. It was so wet hardly any of them came up. About two weeks afterward, I got another paper of seed and sowed them. They all Came up.

Papa and I fixed the hot bed and replanted the plants twice before I careried [carried] them to my tenth of an acre It was very dry at the time I set out my plants. I watered them good and nearly all of them lived. Two weeks from this planting I finished setting out the rest of my plants. We just had a good season and I had no trouble with these. I enjoy the work very much. About a week from that time I worked them over with a hoe and shortly after then I them plowed. examined [latter word appears faintly written in a hand different from author's, probably an adult reviewer]

They grew up beautifully and some of them were at least four feet high. They had lois of tomatoes on them. My patch was close to the house and the chickens destroyed lots of the fruit I would have had fifty or seventy more cans than I had if I Could have saved them all.

The best method I found for sticking the plants, was sticking three burshes [?] around the plants and laying the small limbs between the forks. Owing to the hot weather it was not convenient for me to get sufficent brush so I stuck them with the tobacca sticks and tied them up with string

Some time in July we began canning. I went out soon in the morning and gathered my tomatoes in buckets, them careried, them to the canning ground for canning. We girles had lots of fun and spent many pleasant hours - working in our tomatoes. We had many visitors

during the time we were canning.

I want to remain a Club member next year and want to do better work.