DUTCH VERSUS ENGLISH CONDITIONS 203 



would not necessarily be suited to the whole of our 

 English conditions. Market-gardening at Evesham, 

 for instance, offers many contrasts to market-gardening 

 in Westland. The fact of forty varieties of vegetables, 

 fruit, and flowers being grown ; the widely different 

 qualities of each variety produced by individual growers 

 according to the variations in soil and cultivation ; the 

 practical impossibility of bringing to one common 

 centre the enormous quantities of perishables handled, 

 instead of dealing with them in many different places 

 at the same time ; the extremely wide-spread distri- 

 bution that takes place ; and the hopelessness of 

 expecting that every dealer now getting produce from 

 Evesham would send his agent there to buy, are 

 conditions that, combined with the mutual jealousies of 

 the producers, offer much greater difficulties in the way 

 of co-operative sale at Evesham than is the case in 

 Westland, where the varieties are fewer in number, 

 the qualities more even, and the whole business more 

 concentrated. The setting up, also, of the two auction 

 marts at Evesham, private though they be, leaves the 

 growers much less at the mercy of agents, salesmen, 

 and buyers than they were before. 



All the same, it might be possible to adapt the main 

 principle of the Westland system to local conditions in 

 some of the other market-gardening districts in Eng- 

 land, especially where the growers form convenient 

 groups, cultivate mainly a few special crops, and 

 produce on a smaller scale than is the case at Evesham. 

 Even if the organized body did not actually handle, 

 grade, and sell the produce grown, it might perform a 

 most useful function in helping to put the producers 

 into more direct touch with the retailers, instead of 

 leaving those retailers to go to the wholesale market to 

 buy produce that may already have passed through or 



