SOLON ROBINSON, 1851 505 



Your first feeling upon viewing Washington Market 

 will be disgust at the corporate authorities of New York, 

 for maintaining such an abomination — such a collection 

 of old wooden sheds, as altogether go to make up, as you 

 will suppose, a sort of temporary make-shift for a mar- 

 ket house. Yet this make-shift policy has disgraced the 

 city upon this spot for a quarter of a century. The 

 ground occupied by this market is much longer than that 

 of Fulton, and the business transacted here, will be to 

 you utterly inconceivable. Situated as it is upon the 

 bank of the Hudson, it is the great receiving depot of 

 that prolific inlet of farm produce to the markets of the 

 city and the world. This, more than any other, is a 

 wholesale mart of provisions. 



Let us step on board of the market vessels in the ad- 

 joining dock. At least a dozen large schooners from 

 Maine and New Hampshire, loaded entirely with north- 

 ern potatoes, and nearly as many more from Delaware, 

 Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, with cargoes of 

 sweet ones. Here are five sloop loads of turnips, and as 

 many more of cabbages. Of apples, we might as well 

 estimate the sands of the sea shore, as attempt an ap- 

 proximation towards the quantity of this fruit daily pass- 

 ing through this market, to say nothing of all the other 

 avenues by which it enters into and is sold and resold, or 

 consumed in this great fruit emporium. 



Besides all these sailing vessels, you will find all along 

 the docks contiguous to this market, numerous steam- 

 boats and tow barges, fitted up expressly for the trans- 

 portation of market produce. Upon these you will count 

 the carcasses of beef, mutton, pork, poultry, and game 

 by the hundreds, butter and cheese by the ton. To give 

 you some idea of the extent of trade in the former article, 

 we will mention that a friend of ours, in the vicinity of 

 Washington Market, whose business is that of wholesale 

 grocer, and not generally engaged in the produce trade, 

 informed us that the value of butter consigned to this 

 house for sale, would amount to $50,000 per annum. 



