Livingston's Paragon Tomato

75 days, indeterminate — "The Paragon Tomato," as its creator Alexander W. Livingston called it, was so-named because it was of, ". . . superior excellence in comparison with all others [tomato varieties] in the market at that time."^[1]  Livingston's 'Paragon' is a first in several aspects.

It marked Mr. Livingston's first success at intentionally and carefully selecting for specific traits and stabilizing them over time to develop a new variety.  This selection process that he described as being "pure discovery on his part,"^[1] and which he called his, "New Method," resulted in the 'Paragon' being the very first, "perfectly and uniformly smooth tomato ever introduced . . ."^[1]

The fruit were described as "blood red"^[1] or "glossy deep red."^[3]  They ripen between early and late varieties, are vigorous, and have sturdy stalks and heavy foliage.^[2]  Said to "endure early frosts longer . . ."

Introduced in 1870 as Livingston's first release in a long line of unique and commercially interesting tomato varieties, 'Paragon', like all new discoveries, "produced a revolution."^[1] In this case, it was the last piece needed to begin the commercial tomato industry in America. 

Our stock originated from the National Seed Storage Lab's accession number NSSL 27616 (PI 451990) that we received in 2002. Each packet contains approximately 20 seeds.