102 MARKET-GARDENING 



The amount of capital involved in this West Middlesex 

 market-garden enterprise is beyond my power of calcula- 

 tion ; but a competent authority estimates the amount 

 paid in wages in the district at no less than 100,000 a 

 year. One of the most striking factors in the situation 

 is, indeed, the much greater proportion of labour em- 

 ployed on a market-garden, worked on the principles of 

 intensive culture, than would be wanted on the same 

 amount of land when used for ordinary agricultural 

 crops. There are, for instance, vegetable farms in West 

 Middlesex employing from 60 to 120 hands, where, 

 under corn production, a score or so would suffice. 

 A West Middlesex grower with 300 acres may employ 

 thereon any number of men, women, and boys, up 

 to 150. 



Here the great difficulty that arises is in respect to 

 housing. Not only does the cost of building become 

 unduly heavy, if all the requirements of local authorities 

 are to be met, but those same authorities seem to con- 

 sider that market-gardening is so highly prosperous 

 a business that it can stand anything in the way of local 

 taxation. Thus the cabbages and the cauliflowers 

 grown in West Middlesex will have to go to Covent 

 Garden handicapped with their proportionate share of 

 the cost of maintaining so many inmates in a local 

 Palace for Lunatics which is likely to involve an ex- 

 penditure of some half-million of money ; while, in the 

 matter of housing, the rent of a cottage which might other- 

 wise let in the district at 43. 6d. a week has to be raised 

 to 6s. a week on account of the rates. In the circum- 

 stances, cottages can hardly be built to pay, as a business 

 proposition ; and those that the growers are constructing 

 are ' tied ' houses, for the accommodation exclusively of 

 their own workpeople. Such rent as can be charged 

 for them only just covers expenses, and for this reason 



