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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that proves there's more than one way to make history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the time when the Supreme Court weighed in on the

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Speaker 1: all important question of whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables.

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Speaker 1: The day was May tenth, eighteen ninety three. The US

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled in the case of Nix v. Headen

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Speaker 1: that tomatoes are vegetables, not fruits. The unanimous ruling was

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Speaker 1: controversial for several reasons, but primarily because it flew in

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Speaker 1: the face of accepted science. In the realm of botany,

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Speaker 1: a tomato is absolutely a fruit, as it develops from

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Speaker 1: the fertilized ovary of a plant and contained seeds. A vegetable,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, is defined as any edible part

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Speaker 1: of a plant that doesn't bear seeds. That means that

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Speaker 1: tomato plants, including their roots, stems, and leaves, are technically vegetables,

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Speaker 1: but the seed bearing tomatoes that grow from them are

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Speaker 1: by definition fruits. However, as the Supreme Court showed, scientific

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Speaker 1: definitions and legal ones don't always agree, so the answer

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Speaker 1: really depends on who you're asking. That's because in the

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Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds there was another major difference between fruits

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Speaker 1: and vegetables that botanists didn't account for. Namely, imported vegetables

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Speaker 1: were subject to a ten percent tariff upon arrival in

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Speaker 1: the United States, while imported fruits were not. The tariff

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Speaker 1: on vegetables went into effect in eighteen eighty three, and

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Speaker 1: three years later a Manhattan wholesaler named John Nix discovered

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Speaker 1: a gray area in the law. When he and his

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Speaker 1: four sons brought a shipment of Caribbean tomatoes to the

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Speaker 1: Port of New York, they were slapped with the tariff

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Speaker 1: on imported vegetables. The Knicks family disputed the fees on

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Speaker 1: the grounds that tomatoes were actually fruits and therefore exempt

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Speaker 1: from taxation, but the collector of the port, Edward Hedden,

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Speaker 1: refused to budge. The following year, the Knixes sued Headen

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Speaker 1: to recover their tariff duties, and after a six year

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Speaker 1: long legal battle, the case made its way to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court. The Knicks family's attorney presented the definitions for fruit, vegetable,

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Speaker 1: and tomato from three different dictionaries and then called in

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Speaker 1: two fellow produce merchants as witnesses testify as to whether

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Speaker 1: they considered tomatoes to be fruits or vegetables. The Defense

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Speaker 1: Council employed many of the same tactics, drawing the Justice's

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Speaker 1: attention to the Dictionary definitions for squash, pepper, eggplant, and cucumber.

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Speaker 1: Their argument was that all of those kinds of produce

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Speaker 1: are biologically fruits, but because people prepare and eat them

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Speaker 1: like vegetables, they should be classified as such and taxed accordingly.

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Speaker 1: In the end, the Supreme Court agreed with that line

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Speaker 1: of reasoning, probably because it wasn't the first time they'd heard. It.

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Speaker 1: Turned out there was precedent for treating one variety of

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Speaker 1: food as another for the purposes of trade and commerce.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteen ninety two case of Robertson versus Slomon,

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Speaker 1: the Court ruled that beans should be considered vegetables rather

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Speaker 1: than seeds. The Justice's rationale was that while both are

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Speaker 1: technically seeds quote in the language of botany or natural history,

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Speaker 1: they are not in commerce nor in common parlance. Justice

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Speaker 1: Horace Gray came to a very similar conclusion when drafting

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Speaker 1: the Court's unanimous decision in the case of Nix v.

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Speaker 1: Headin botanically speaking, he wrote, tomatoes are the fruit of

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Speaker 1: a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas.

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Speaker 1: But in the common language of the people, whether cellars

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Speaker 1: or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are

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Speaker 1: grown in kitchen gardens, in which whether eaten, cooked or raw,

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Speaker 1: are like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery,

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Speaker 1: and lettuce, usually served at dinner, and not like fruits

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Speaker 1: generally as dessert. In other words, a tomato is a

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Speaker 1: vegetable in the eyes of the law, because that's how

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Speaker 1: most people think of it, and because tariff laws pertain

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Speaker 1: to commerce rather than science, they adhere to the commercial

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Speaker 1: definition rather than the botanical one. The court delivered its

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Speaker 1: decision on May tenth, eighteen ninety three, and the Knick's

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Speaker 1: family had to continue paying the ten percent tariff on

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Speaker 1: every tomato they imported. In the decades since, various tear

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Speaker 1: fifacts have come and gone, but the court's ruling on

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Speaker 1: the tomato's classification still stands to this day. Of course,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean the matter is completely settled. Many people

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Speaker 1: continue to debate whether a tomato is a fruit or

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Speaker 1: a vegetable, and several states have drawn a hard line

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Speaker 1: on the issue. Both Louisiana and New Jersey have designated

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Speaker 1: the tomato as their official state vegetable, with Jersey specifically

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Speaker 1: citing nix V Hedden in its decision. However, Tennessee and

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Speaker 1: Ohio rebels that they are have cast their lots with

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Speaker 1: the botanists by naming the tomato their official state fruit. Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, took the bilateral approach, declaring the

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Speaker 1: vine ripe pink tomato as both the state fruit and

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Speaker 1: the state vegetable. You don't get to say it much,

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Speaker 1: but well played, Arkansas. I'm Gay Blues and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: now know a little more about history today than you

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Speaker 1: did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with the show,

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Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: feel free to send them my way by writing to

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Speaker 1: this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to kazb Bias

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in History Class.