Thorburn's Terra-Cotta Tomato

[jmsieglaff]

I saw Baker Creek listed a variety from 1893 they are pleased to introduce and have a limited availability of seeds: Thorburn's Terra-Cotta Tomato.

Their description:
Introduced in 1893 by James Thorburn of New York, this is one of the most sensational tomatoes we have ever grown. With honey-brown skin, orange-pink flesh, and green seed mass, this is an eye-catching slicer with an out-of-this-world flavor. The tomato produces heavily during mid-season and then drops off quickly once cool weather sets in. As a cooker it will yield a pumpkin-orange sauce with a floral aroma. We are excited to have this tomato that was painted in color in Thorburns 1893 catalog, at last we can offer this rare treasure! Very limited seeds this year. Fifty percent of each sale go to support Dr. Weavers work.

Call me a sucker or call me what you will, but I did a quick Google search and really didn't find much of anything on this tomato, so I ordered some seeds and reshuffled the 2016 garden plan to fit this one in. Something neat about growing a really old variety that there isn't much info about on the net.

Another interesting link, text from the 1893 Thorburn's Seed Catalog (just do a web browser search for terra-cotta): https://archive.org/stream/jmthorbur...3thor_djvu.txt

[jmsieglaff]

Anyone else going to try this tomato in 2016?

[Labradors2]

Nope. Please let us know if it's a winner .

I can't decide between Orange Jazz and Tangerine for an orange next season.....

Linda

[salix]

Actually I'd love to try this one, as I suspect James Thorburn was the brother of my great grandfather...

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by salix

Actually I'd love to try this one, as I suspect James Thorburn was the brother of my great grandfather...

Wow, there's stories and history behind a tomato and then there are personal ties. That's pretty neat. I'll post my 2016 results here, if you grow it, I'd be curious to see your results too.

[nctomatoman]

I have my doubts - I've known about the listing (it is first listed in the 1895 catalog, described as having a downy skin - fuzzy, matte - several companies listed their versions of so-called "peach" tomatoes at that time - the picture shown is a chocolate colored tomato (a yellow skinned black).

You never know...but Terra Cotta is a really obscure variety that was listed for a very short time.

Their "Lemon Blush" (Thorburn's) pretty much matches the description for Livingston's Golden Queen. It was quite common practice back in the 1875-1900 period for companies to release selections (some probably near identical) of known varieties as their own named variety or specialty. Significant grow out/testing was done in the 1880s to early 1900s of more than one hundred varieties from catalogs by a few universities - the conclusions were that many weren't stable, were crossed, or pretty much identical.

[travis]

:::deleted comment:::

[carolyn137]

I was curious to see what it looked like so googled a bit and here is the page from Baker Creek.

http://www.rareseeds.com/thorburn-s-terra-cotta-tomato/

Not what I expected to see and at the bottom of the description it said money back to Dr. Weaver for his project, I didn't know he had that title,yes I know him very well and have met him, so I looked around a bit more and found this at the bottom of page 2

http://www.rareseeds.com/store/veget...s-weaver/?pg=2

It isn't clear to me if this is one that he found in his grandfather's collection, but if you look in the Legacy Forum for a thread titled True Black Brandywine, I think that's the title, for old varieties he revived I have to wonder if it was indeed WWW who sent the Terra Cotta seeds to Baker Creek.

I do like looking into origins of this and that and my curiousity worked out well in finding out where the variety Budai Torpe came from, and that thread is in the Wanted Seed Forum.

Carolyn

[jmsieglaff]

Carolyn,

I contacted their customer service asking for more info after I placed my order. It is a William Weaver find. This is specifically what the customer service person wrote back to me.

"Dr. Weaver wrote me back that he had covered this in an article he wrote for Heirloom Gardener magazine. However, upon checking I found that the article hasn't been published yet.
Because it has not, I feel comfortable in copying only a small snippet here: "Seeds for the Terra Cotta Tomato came into the Roughwood Seed Collection in 1993. They were part of parcel of seeds given to me while lecturing in Salem, New Jersey, a gift from an old farmer who was selling his ancestral property to a developer and wanted his heirlooms to find a new and safer home. Atlantic Prize, Turner’s Hybrid (aka Mikado), his gift was a treasure trove of South Jersey tomatoes that seemed to have fallen out of a time machine."

So that's the info I got. The seed was pricey but curiousity got the cat. I'll post how it goes this year. My one question would be if the seed was received in 1993, why is it just coming out now? Maybe he grew it himself and thought it was a good variety to release via Baker Creek? Who knows, but I'm looking forward to growing it.

From the pictures on their website it looks to have green shoulders, would this imply gf gene? Or maybe it just wasn't colored up fully.

[jmsieglaff]

And I began reading the True Black Brandywine thread you mentioned. I've stopped to reply here but will continue. I see what you're getting at and I realize I may have opened a can of worms.

[jmsieglaff]

Well after 3 pages I think I got the gist of it. I'll post here how the tomato is, should be interesting if it is downy skinned at all as Craig mentioned.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

And I began reading the True Black Brandywine thread you mentioned. I've stopped to reply here but will continue. I see what you're getting at and I realize I may have opened a can of worms.

Glad you found it since I had already fetched it for you.

No, I don't think you've opened a can or worms at all

And I looked at the picture again and no I don't think it has green shoulders, just some are more ripe than others.

And nothing like the fuzzy ones that Craig had info about and posted above,ones with fruit names such as Nectarine, Peach Blow Sutton, Garden Peach, etc

Shortly after Jere Gettle started his magazine he called me and asked if I would write for it and I said no,not as long as WWW is, but I said it more diplomaticaly, b'c the articles that WWW were so full of errors it was pathetic.

WWW wanted both Craig L and myself to collaborate on his first Heirloom book, we both turned him down, and now you know why, the bad news was that there were many many errors in the tomato section let alone errors in other sections that came to light when folks started reading it. There was one error that Jere perpetuated and I think still does even though both Craig and I tried to set him straight on that one.

Here are some links that I worked from and interestingly Thoburn was from NY state, the state where I live

https://www.google.com/search?q=M+Th..._AUIBigA&dpr=1

WWW wanted some seeds I was SSE listing, I sent them to him but his subsequent listings for them were way beyond belief and very different from others who also got the same varieties from me which I had gotten in a huge trade back in 1992 with Norbert in France and that trade also included others such as Joe bratka, Craig, I think Bill Minkey and maybe one more. Norbert asked us, not the other way around ,we SSE listed all of them and many have been faves since then .

If you finish reading the True Brandywine thready you'll see him reference that he had this and that from his grandfathers collection that he had for years but then included others as well in his description of how he bred True BB. Quite a time lag there more like warp speed.

Carolyn

[sjamesNorway]

Here's the original description, and links to the catalog.



THORBURN'S TERRA-COTTA TOMATO.— This unique cross-bred variety might well be mis- taken for a distinct species of Tomato, owing to its peculiarities of color, form, skin, flesh and quality. Its history in brief, is this: In beginning his experiments, the "Peach" was one kind selected by Mr. Carman as the female parent, while the favorites of the day were chosen as the males. Not one of the plants grown from this seed bore Tomatoes which resembled the "Peach" mother; not one developed its characteristic downy skin. The best of these cross-breds were chosen as the female parents the next year, and were crossed with "Ponderosa," " Ignotum," " Stone," etc., and " Terra-Cotta " is one of the results. The color is a pure terra-cotta— quite unlike anything ever seen in a Tomato before. The skin is lustreless and slightly downy, like that of the "Peach. ' In form it is also unique. It is rarely acutely or deeply lobed or seamed. The surface is slightly wavy and the undulations gradual or obscure. The flesh, too, is peculiarly arranged. Just underneath the flesh of the skin are the pulp cells in which all the seeds are imbedded. The central portion is solid flesh of a mealy, tender consistency and of a mild flavor, peculiarly agreeable to those who prefer raw Tomatoes. The vines are marvels of productiveness, beginning to bear early, and continuing to ripen fruit until frost. Per packet of 20 seeds, 25 cts.

The 1893 catalog:
https://archive.org/stream/jmthorbur...ge/n3/mode/2up
The original text:
https://archive.org/stream/jmthorbur...3thor_djvu.txt

[sjamesNorway]

Just checked. The second link in the above post is the same as jmsieglaff's link in post 1. The first link above shows the original catalog.

[salix]

sjamesNorway (?Steve) Thank you so very much for posting that link. I have just spent over an hour going through the catalogue - just amazing the varieties listed, I think there were 9 types of Forget-me-nots for example, and an absolutely astonishing number of coniferous and deciduous tree and shrub seeds. I was surprised to see how many more flowers and ornamentals than vegetables were available, but not surprised to see the various cereals and grains listed. Will be going through that again and sending the info to my sister and aunts. So nice to see that gardening for us has some link to the past, guess we came by it legitimately.

jmsieglaff - I won't bother to grow it, as I am pretty sure that it is not what was described. I'm afraid I have little faith in WWWs 'discoveries'. I hope it turns out to be a winner for you.