136 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY 



plaint to make against the railway companies.' Within 

 a radius of five miles of Evesham there are now fourteen 

 railway-stations. From Evesham itself special vegetable 

 trains are despatched on both the Great Western and 

 the Midland systems all the year round, becoming, of 

 course, especially numerous in the summer months. 

 Sent from Evesham at 12.30 mid-day, produce will 

 reach Edinburgh or Glasgow at 6 o'clock the next 

 morning, or, consigned to Leeds between seven and 

 eight in the evening, it should arrive there about 3 a.m. 



While the railways were thus improving their services, 

 the growers and the traders were making an effort to 

 put marketing and distribution on a better footing. At 

 one time the growers sent their produce mainly to 

 salesmen in various large towns, and trusted to the 

 honesty of those salesmen and the condition of the 

 markets to get the best prices they could. But, what- 

 ever the degree of probity of the salesman, the stuff often 

 went to markets already congested, and the results from 

 a financial standpoint were then most unsatisfactory. 



New conditions were at last established on the open- 

 ing of two local markets, at which the growers could 

 dispose of their produce to local dealers by auction. 

 Of these local dealers a goodly number established 

 themselves at Evesham, and they made a speciality of 

 working up a direct trade with a multitude of smaller 

 provincial towns which had hitherto looked to London 

 or some other leading city as their distributing centre. 

 Manchester, for instance, the ' Covent Garden of the 

 North,' is the point from which a large number of 

 towns throughout Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire 

 draw their supplies, by dealing with the wholesale 

 merchants in the markets there, and the aim of the 

 Evesham traders has been to send Evesham produce 

 direct to these smaller towns, instead of leaving them 



