Quote:
Originally Posted by Karla
Pinetree seeds has Moreton listed on their site and their 2011 catalog.
I grew Moreton this past summer and enjoyed! the flavor,good production.
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http://harrisseeds.blogspot.com/p/ab...ris-seeds.html
I looked in my Pinetree catalog and looked at the info for Moreton Hybrid given there and starting shaking my head.
The blurb from the website reads:
(To our knowledge this was the first hybrid tomato sold, developed at Rucker's ( this appears as Rutgers in the catalog, CJM) and first appearing in the Harris Seed catalog in 1953. For about a dozen years it was the foremost variety grown in New Jersey where it was also known as the 4th of July tomato. But it is a soft tomato - poor shipper and so, as with other heirloom varieties, it was replaced by inferior tasting varieties with Pik or Pak in their names. Then it nearly disappeared - in fact between 1991 and 1994 one of the parent strains was lost. Fortunately an employee had purchased a bunch of seed at the auction that resulted from the Harris Moran merger and discovered that seed in his collection. It truly possessed the (Jersey tomato flavor). Plants are huge, and require support. Fruits are bright red, over a pound and terrific. 15 seeds
They said it was bred by Rutgers. And it wasn't the first hybrid sold anyway. Both Big Boy ( intorduced by Buroee in 1948) and I think Better Boy ( just a couple of years later as bred by John Peto of Petoseeds in CA after he left Burpee and took Teddy Jones, the one parent, with him)preceded it.
I linked to a history of Harris above and they named their farm Moreton Farm in 1863 so I would think that that it was bred by Harris and named for Moreton Farm as would seem reasonable. I will check that out some more, but I know that I had various chats with Mark Willets, I think his name is, at Harris , especially when Moreton Hybrid disappeared and he said something to the effect that I didn't have to worry about Supersonic and Jet Star b'c those two along with Moreton were the three best sellers above and beyond the more recent F1's they sell.
I was pretty sure that Mark told me that Harris bred all three, but of course I could be wrong.
If Rutgers U had bred it they probably would have called it Rutgers, ahem, but that name was taken, or they could have named it Ramapo, for the mountains that go from N Jersey into southern NYS.
But then why would Rutgers have resurrected both Ramapo F1 and Moreton Hybrid at the same time if they hadn't bred it first, but then why name it for Moreton Farm where Harris was headquartered in NYS at Rochester.
See, I do let issues like this bother me.
It's better worrying about something like this than wondering how much fuel is in the tank that feeds my Monitor or if one of the more aggressive deer hunters will put some bullets thru my all glass windows that are on the exterior of the front 2/3 of the hexagon that comprises my LV and DR, b'c rifle season started today.
Oh well, just some musings after looking at the weather forcast for next week ala snow on T-day and the next, but the good news is that I'll be hunkered down in my recliner chair watching the ATP tennis finals from London starting tomorrow. Well, after I pay some bills and pack up some seeds to go out Monday.