APPENDIX. 241 



the open air, but in frames. Early cucumbers, also grown in 

 frames, are largely imported from Holland, and are sold so 

 cheaply that many English gardeners have ceased to grow 

 them.* Even beetroot and pickling cabbage are imported 

 from Holland ; and while onions were formerly largely grown 

 in this country, we see that in 1894, 5,288,512 bushels of 

 onions, .765,049 worth, were imported from Belgium (chief 

 importer), Germany, Holland, France, and so on. 



Again, that early potatoes should be imported from the 

 Azores and the south of France is quite natural. It is not 

 so natural, however, that more than 50,000 tons of potatoes 

 (58,060 tons, 521,141 worth, on the average during the 

 years 1891-4) should be imported from the Channel Islands, 

 because there are hundreds if not thousands of acres in South 

 Devon, and most probably in other parts of the south coast 

 too, where early potatoes could be grown equally well. But 

 besides the 88,200 tons of early potatoes (710,586 worth) 

 which are imported to this country, no less than 54,100 tons 

 of late potatoes, for which 441,300 are paid every year, 

 are imported from Holland, Germany and Belgium. And, 

 moreover, this country imported, during the same three years, 

 all sorts of green vegetables, for the sum of i, 027, 411 (as 

 against 467,290 in 1885) from different countries,! while 

 thousands of acres lie idle, and the country population is 

 driven to the cities in search of work, without finding it. 



Every one knows how well potatoes succeed in this country, 

 and what admirable sorts of potatoes have been bred by the 

 British growers. But the rent and the middleman absorb 

 the best profits of the grower. I could produce striking 

 facts to prove this last assertion concerning the middleman ; 

 but similar facts having already been produced in heaps, it 

 would be useless to swell by more figures an evidence al- 

 ready overwhelming. I 



* The Gardener's Chronicle, 2oth April, 1895, p. 483. 



t Ibid. 



t Cf. W. Bear's British Farmer and His Competitors, p. 151. 



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