INTRODUCTION 



THERE is no contrast in the farm or garden world more 

 striking than that between the market-gardens of London 

 and Paris : about London broad sweeps in the Thames 

 valley, wind-swept, shelterless, well farmed ; about Paris 

 close gardens, walled in, richly cultivated, and verdant 

 with crops, even at the most inclement time of the year, 

 and with not an inch of space wasted with paths. And 

 this is not owing to the differences of climate, although 

 people say, whenever one speaks of it, " It is a question 

 of climate" I do not know a worse climate in winter 

 than that of Paris, the season when the gardeners get 

 their most profitable results. For all green things our 

 climate is, if anything, a shade better than theirs. The 

 very fact of the little cloche covering acres proves that 

 the climate of Paris is not so good. The late M. Henri 

 de Vilmorin used to tell me that his father had much 

 considered the market-gardens of the two capitals, and 

 estimated that the French grower of vegetables got at 

 least four times the quantity obtained in the larger and 

 broader cultures round London. Be it noted here that 

 this book concerns the limited culture of the Paris market- 

 gardens, for around Paris, as around London, there is 

 the large field culture of vegetables. There is good soil 

 round Paris in the Seine valley, and we cannot complain 

 of the soil in the valley of the Thames it is a totally 

 different system and plan we have to look to. 



xvii A 



