TYPICAL DISTRICTS 99 



to fill up official returns specifying the exact amount of 

 each particular crop they grow. Then, the railway 

 returns as to traffic carried are only of service in 

 the case of market-garden areas which are more than 

 fifteen or twenty miles away from a large centre of 

 population, inasmuch as within that distance the 

 produce would generally be taken to market by road. 

 Nor would the market returns, as a rule, give even an 

 approximate idea of the quantities handled, no really 

 strict classification being observed in the case of those 

 on which tolls are taken, while there is no account at 

 all in the case of market-stands that are rented by 

 growers themselves ; and at Covent Garden, for ex- 

 ample, half the outer fringe is divided into stands of 

 this type. 



In the circumstances, all that I can attempt to do in 

 the way of giving some idea, however incomplete, of 

 the importance attained by the market-gardening in- 

 dustry in this country is to offer a few examples of 

 typical districts, and to supplement them in the follow- 

 ing chapter by such information as I have been able to 

 collect with regard to the production of some of the 

 more important crops. 



West Middlesex ranks as one of the most important 

 of the various market-gardening areas within a twenty- 

 mile radius of London. Beginning even as near to 

 the Metropolis as Chiswick and Kew, it extends 

 through Brentford and Isleworth to (among other 

 places) Hounslow, Witton, Feltham, Cranford, Hatton, 

 Heston, Southall, West Drayton and Yiewsley, Har- 

 lington, Hayes, Harmondsworth, and Longford. The 

 greater part of this very considerable area is practically 

 devoted to the growing of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, 

 for the London markets. The farms are mostly from 

 50 to 100 acres in size, but 30o-acre farms are not 



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