MARKET GARDENERS* ORGANIZATION 133 



receiving a salary being the clerk of the society. 

 Even the member acting as auctioneer gives his 

 services, considering himself sufficiently repaid 

 by the honour with which the post is regarded. 



No arrangement could, in the circumstances, 

 have been devised that was better calculated to 

 promote the interests of the market-gardeners, 

 many of whom, working early and late, lived 

 the life of labourers, and, after paying their 

 helpers and their landlord, found themselves 

 with little more than the equivalent of a 

 labourer's wages in the way of profit. To men 

 so situated it was all-important that they should 

 be able to get the best return they possibly could 

 for their produce. 



Among the largest of these co-operative 

 societies of Dutch market -gardeners is the one 

 established in the aforesaid district of Westland, 

 which has now, through the instrumentality of 

 this organization, thoroughly recovered its good 

 name. The Westland Society is, in effect, a 

 federation of seven local societies, whose total 

 sales amount to about £50,000 a year. It is 

 mostly fruit that is grown in Westland — straw- 

 berries, raspberries, red currants, peaches, and 

 grapes, with certain quantities of tomatoes and 

 ghirkins. The neighbouring markets of the 

 Hague, Scheveningen, and Rotterdam are easily 



