124 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS 



Cornwall alone to 1,273 tons; and that in Essex very 

 large quantities of cabbages are grown in the district 

 lying south of a line drawn from Romford to the 

 Thames at Thames Haven, though, as almost the whole 

 of this traffic finds its way to London by road, the 

 distance between field and market being, as a rule, 

 under twelve miles, it is impossible in this case (as 

 also in the case of much that is grown in Kent, in 

 Middlesex, and in the Thames Valley) to give even an 

 approximate idea as to quantities. 



Eaten either raw or as a cooked vegetable, celery has 

 received a greatly increased patronage of late years, 

 and in the season is almost ubiquitous on the tables 

 alike of rich and poor ; though in Great Britain we have 

 not yet reached the stage arrived at in the United 

 States, where a native celery of a particularly flavour- 

 less kind (' not worth eating,' a Lincolnshire man would 

 say) is put on the table at the beginning of the dinner, 

 and is nibbled by the guests between the courses, or at 

 any other odd moment throughout the meal, in order, 

 apparently, to fill up time. 



The increased public patronage has naturally given a 

 great impetus to the cultivation of celery wherever the 

 soil in Great Britain is suitable thereto ; and in certain 

 districts of Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire es- 

 pecially there are very large areas devoted to celery. 

 There are a few growers who have up to 100 acres 

 of land if not even more under celery ; there are many 

 who have 20, 30, 40, or 50 acres ; there are still more 

 who have from 10 to 20 acres; and there is an indefinite 

 number of very small growers who produce celery on 

 allotments, and dispose of it as a means of supple- 

 menting their ordinary wages as farm helpers, or other- 

 wise. Haxey (Lincolnshire), the population of which is 



