408 Market-Garden Soils and Crops 



of soda and 1 cwt, common salt). Oats without manure. Clover and 

 rye or wheat. The average yield is .'56 bushels of wheat and .5-6 quarters 

 of oats to the acre. 



The smaller market-gardeners on the Stanford-Broom plateau 

 find it very difficult to obtain London dung and consequently rely 

 greatly on soot, with poor results. Artificial manures are coming 

 slowly into use, owing to this difficulty in obtaining dung, and one or 

 two market-gardeners using them, it is true without much science, are 

 nevertheless obtaining larger crops than tlioir neighbours. The smaller 

 market-gardeners appear to have no definite .system of rotation of 

 crops. They grow potatoes and brussels sprouts with an occasional 

 crop of peas and cereals. 



There is considerable rivalry between the Biggleswade and Potton 

 market-gardeners in putting their crops first on the market. The 

 Potton market-gardeners on the brown sand formation usually manage 

 to place early potatoes on the market almost a fortnight ahead of the 

 Biggleswade gardeners. This is due to a slightly heavier soil, in the 

 case of the Biggleswade plateau, which retains the water to such an 

 extent as to make this difference in earliness between the two soils. 



The following analyses show the water content of the Biggleswade 

 plateau and the brown sand formation at two different periods of the 

 year. The samples were taken from soils on the same plateau at about 

 corresponding altitudes. 



Composition. Mechanical and chemical analysis reveals a striking 

 uniformity throughout all the samples of the old brown soil formation. 

 They are all coarse gravel sands containing rather less coarse sand and 

 more clay than the greensand brown sand formation. The content 

 of potash and phosphoric acid is very similar to that found in the 

 brown greensand soil formation. The old brown formation is largely 

 derived from greensand material and this accounts for the close 

 resemblance in the percentages of these ingredients. The soils of this 

 formation are very deficient in calcium carbonate. The available 

 phosphoric is usually high, but the percentage of available potash tends 



