Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1903 — ORIGIN OF THE TOMATO. [ARTICLE]

ORIGIN OF THE TOMATO.

There Is Its Record of a Tina* When It Grew Wild. The tomato is a native of South America and more particularly of Peru and the Andean region. The Indian name for it is “tumatl” and the Spanish name “tomate.” When the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century they considered nothing of much Importance except silver. But In 1583 they took some tomatoes home with them as a matter of curiosity, little dreaming that there would some day be more silver in them than there was In all the Peruvian mines. There Is a general impression that nntil sixty or seventy years ago the tomato plant was universally regarded as a poisonous weed and that Its handsome fruit was called the "love apple,” and never cultivated except as something pleasant to look upon. But this story is Inconsistent with itself. The tomato was called the “love apple" for the reason that it was believed to be an aphrodisiac, or excitant of amorous feelings. But It could not even be suspected of such a property unless it had been habitually eaten. The truth is that there is no record of a time when In South America the tomato was not an article of food. There Is indeed no record of a time when it grew wild. When the Spaniards reached Peru they found nothing but the cultivated tomato, which was cultivated for food. They took a fancy to it and took it to Spain, from which place It found its way in 1596 to England.