42 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



to another neighborhood he can pull those trees up after dark 

 and take them with him. I know because I have done it and 

 they will go on growing almost as readily as the chickens 

 which you move along at the same time. Here we have cur- 

 rant bushes in the same style of garden, simply to show that 

 when one starts out in that suburban back yard gardening he 

 can do almost anything he pleases. 



Now we are back in Europe and find ourselves in the Covent 

 Garden JMarket which I think is far and away the most interest- 

 ing fruit market in the world. In some ways it is the largest 

 fruit market in the world— I don't know but it is reallv the 

 largest in the volume of fruit that it handles; it certainly is 

 the most interesting one in the extent of country from which it 

 draws, for one finds there fruit literally from all parts of the 

 world. He finds the best from all parts of the world because 

 it is a discriminating market, a market which selects well. 

 There are some of the keenest and brightest fruit handlers in 

 the world, men who have correspondents everv-where, in every 

 country, and they know what the fruit markets of the world 

 are, what fruits of every kind are, where they come from. One 

 gets all kinds of information and all kinds of courtesies from 

 these men, and it is extremely interesting. Of course we self- 

 satisfied Yankees see a great many things to criticise. For 

 instance, those baskets piled up in the background, willow bas- 

 kets, they use for every sort of thing, and they ship everything 

 in them, including strawberries. Strawberries are mostly 

 shipped in quarter bushel baskets made out of willow in that 

 fashion. And moreover, they are returnable baskets, shipped 

 up from Kent to London, berries sold and poured out into the 

 old woman's apron, and then the crate is shipped back to 

 Kent, thrown in the red mud in the early morning, and is 

 packed full of fruit again and shipped back to Covent Garden, 

 and the next day it comes back to Kent again, and so after 

 making about twenty trips and resting in the red mud twenty 

 (liiTerent mornings, and having the strawberry juice run 

 through twenty different times, you can imagine the sort of 

 package in which the strawberries are distributed in the market 

 in London. 



Here is another corner of the market, with the usual things. 

 This place here in Liverpool shows many of the same features 



