When I started my seed work, my stretch goal was to find one functionally extinct Jersey tomato and bring it back. I’m now up to six in the last two years with the help of community partners.
The origin of the six varieties include a distinguished farmer with a tomato experimental farm, Campbell Soup, a Burpee selected version of Sparks Earliana, and three varieties from a seed company, including their marquee tomato. This cross section is a good representation of the depth of Jersey tomato breeding and history.
Kille #7
Origin—Nortonville,Gloucester County, NJ
Seed source—Sandhill Preservation Farm
Willard Bronson Kille was an award-winning and distinguished farmer with an experimental tomato farm. He sold seeds off his farm, and did field work for Campbell Soup’s tomato breeding program. In the late ‘60s the Kille #7 was a significant to mato locally and womewhat nationally. The national profile came from the Stokes Seed Company, VIncentown, Burlington County, NJ selling the seeds. I petitioned the Gloucester County Commissioners to recognize Kille's work and this tomato with a proclamation. They did, and proclaimed the Kille #7 a Gloucester County, NJ original heirloom tomato,
Burpee Sunybrook Ealiana
Origin—Woolwich Township, Gloucester County, NJ
Seed source—USDA
Sparks Earliana was introduced by the Johnson & Stokes Seed Company, Mooerstown, Burlington County, NJ in 1900. It was the earliest tomato of its time and very prolific. It’s a sport of the Stone variety that appeared on George Spark's farm in Perkintown, Salem County, NJ.
It became a workhorse of the tomato canning industry in the early 1900s. It caught Burpes’s attention, who wrote fondly about it in his catalogs for the five years after it was introduced. Enough time for him to select his own at his Sunnybrook Farm in Woolwich Township, NJ. I revived this tomato at my community garden plot about three miles from where Sunnybrook was, while reading the seed trial journals for the selection process at the Smithsonian Gardens, Washington, DC.
Garden State
Origin—Riverside, Camden County, NJ
Seed source—USDA
Campbell’s had an extensive tomato breeding program in South Jersey. Introduced in 1947, the Garden State is the symbolic Jersey tomato. The Garden State is our state’s nickname. We grow the best tasting tomatoes. They were bred to thrive in our soil and for farm freshness, peak of of flavor processing. The Garden State should be in every garden in NJ.
What better way to celebrate this symbol of the Jersey tomato American foodway than making the seeds for free for everyone? This project does that.
Germinate, Grow, Save. Share.
Stokesdale
Origin—Vincentown, Burlington County, NJ
Seed source—USDA
In 1936, the Stokes Seed Company, Vicentown, switched their business model from selling all vegetable seeds to just tomatoes. Bold move, but worthy of Jersey tomatoes. The Stokesdale was their signature tomato of that time. They sold hybrid versions of it also.
Valliant
Origin—Vincentown, Burlington County, NJ
Seed source—Sandhill Preservation Farm
Bred by Stokes, with Stokesdale lineage, the Valliant is a good juice tomato from my research. Stokes, besides being a seed company, also canned tomato juice. One example of a NJ seed and canning company under one roof.
Atlantic Prize
Origin—Atlantic County, NJ
Seed source—Belgium
A farmer selected variety from Atlantic County, NJ . It was introduced by the Johnson and Stokes Seed Company in 1889.
A couple notes
Stokes Seed Company is still in business today. They do commercial sales only. Their history started as the Johnson Seed Company, then Johnson & Stokes, and finally as Stokes. They have a strong connection to Jersey tomato seed history and assisted the USDA with the commercial seed release of the Marglobe, a historic breeding yomato because of its disease resistance.
Geographically, the counties that these six tomatoes originated in spans the map from the Delaware river to the Jersey shore.