144 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY 



shall soon have Guernsey in Evesham.' It was not 

 until 1904 that the said competition was started in real 

 earnest ; yet in the early days of December, 1905, I 

 was told that within the course of a single twelvemonth 

 Evesham had already spent on glass-houses no less a 

 sum than 10,000. 



Still more interesting, however, is the attempt that 

 is being made at Evesham to grow those very early 

 lettuces, and other primeurs, for which hitherto English 

 consumers have been accustomed to look to France. 

 This experiment is the outcome of a visit paid to Paris 

 in January, 1905, by a number of market-gardeners 

 from Evesham, who went there for the purpose of seeing 

 for themselves the method of cultivation adopted in the 

 growing of these early lettuces. As I was permitted to 

 accompany the deputation, I may be excused, perhaps, 

 for reproducing the following account of the proceedings 

 which I contributed to The Times of January 20, 1905 : 



ENGLISH MARKET-GARDENERS IN PARIS. 



A visit which a party of some thirty market-gardeners and dealers 

 from the Evesham district of Worcestershire has just paid to the 

 environs of Paris is a noteworthy event in the history of British 

 horticulture. It has been generally assumed that there was no 

 chance for British producers to compete with those of France in 

 the supply of early lettuces, carrots, radishes, etc., for English 

 markets ; and the tendency in England has been for growers to 

 content themselves with making reflections against the railways in 

 respect to the large quantities of foreign produce carried by them 

 mainly at a time when no English-grown supplies of that kind 

 are available. As it has been represented to certain influential 

 traders at Evesham that the Paris growers who send over their 

 4,000 or 5,000 crates of early lettuces and their 500 crates of early 

 carrots to England every day throughout the season had no real 

 advantages which could not be equally enjoyed at Evesham, the 

 visit was arranged with a view to an inquiry into the particular 

 conditions under which the French industry is carried on. 



The facts ascertained were not only interesting, but most en- 

 couraging. An inspection of a number of market-gardens just 

 outside the fortifications on the south-east of Paris (where such 

 gardens extend for a total distance of eight miles) has shown that 



