VEGETABLE-HAWKERS 81 



barrow becomes lighter, for the amount of pro- 

 duce is diminished by sales. Then commences 

 the work of two of the group of students who have 

 brought bicycles with them for reinforcement 

 duty. If more brussels sprouts or celery be re- 

 quired, they mount and ride home for fresh 

 supplies, returning with these safely stowed away 

 in wooden Sussex trugs that rest upon their 

 handle-bars. After an hour or two thus spent, 

 all the busy workers return with money jingling 

 in a purse and the satisfactory feeling that many 

 a poor cottage has secured fresh vegetables for its 

 inmates, and that the mother of the family has 

 been saved a toilsome walk into the country town 

 some three miles distant. Thus this terrible war 

 is not only showing the value of women-gardeners, 

 but slowly our nation is also learning, what other 

 countries have long ago brought into practice, 

 that a closer connection between growers and con- 

 sumers is beneficial to both parties. 



Those who live in towns often accustom them- 

 selves to relying upon the neighbouring green- 

 grocer's shop for a considerable portion of their 

 children's food supply. Perhaps they have never 

 owned land and therefore do not realise the differ- 

 ence there is between stale vegetables and those 

 that come direct from a garden. Most of the 

 fruit and vegetables that we see displayed very 

 temptingly in shop windows have had a long and 

 dusty railway journey, and perhaps a lengthened 

 sojourn in Covent Garden Market. It can, there- 

 fore, not contain the same amount of health-giving 

 food value as produce which is picked in the early 



