1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



361 



Holly was planted by Providence especially for 

 the food of the robin, and its fruit left on the 

 tree during the winter, to sustain these birds at 

 a time when comparatively few of the insect 

 world were abroad. Charles S. Weld. 



Greenhusli, Maine, 1858. 



MARKET GABDENS. 



The bare mention of a kitchen-garden will suf- 

 fice to one enthusiastic writer for an allusion to 

 the wars of the Red and White Roses. In the 

 mind of another, pot-herbs are associated with 

 all the glories of Oriental fiction ; for did not the 

 renowned Caliph Haroun Al Raschid teach his 

 trusty and well-beloved brother, the Emperor 

 Charlemagne, (to whom he was personally known, 

 and was perhaps no more a hero than King 

 George the Third to his valet-de-chambre,) the 

 value of pot-herbs generally, and how to cultivate 

 them ? Turnips suggest Charles Townshend, 

 King George the First's foreign secretary, called 

 Turnip Townshend by the foolish wits about 

 Court, because he noted the mode of cultivating 

 that vegetable in Hanover, when attending the 

 king on an excursion thither, and afterwards in- 

 duced his countrymen to adopt it. The annual 

 value of the turnips chiefly grown on stony lands 

 or on lands exhausted by previous crops in Eng- 

 land, which but for Townshend's efforts would 

 have lain fallow, or remained totally uncultivated, 

 is now estimated at fourteen millions sterling. 

 Surely here was a benefactor to the human race 

 whose monument history has raised, by calling 

 him "Turnip Townshend." 



It is worth remarking that very few of those 

 vegetables which are now so common among us, 

 are natives of these isles. The potato — still a 

 valuable servant, though much broken up in con- 

 stitution of late years — comes, as every one 

 knows, from America. The common pea is sup- 

 posed to be only strictly at home in Syria. Beans 

 are from Egypt or Persia. Onions, in all their 

 varieties, are also from the East. Even the leek 

 the Welchman has no right to stick in his hat as 

 a national emblem ; the same being a native of 

 Switzerland. The Cos lettuce ought to be a na- 

 tive of the island of Cos. Cauliflowers and gar- 

 den cress are from Cyprus ; spinach from West- 

 ern Asia ; endive from Japan ; radishes from Chi- 

 na ; rhubarb from Tartary ; artichokes from the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. Jerusalem arti- 

 chokes are not from Jerusalem, but from South 

 America, the word Jerusalem being a mere cor- 

 ruption arising from an accidental resemblance 

 in sound between that word and their Spanish 

 name. Turnips and carrots are found wild here ; 

 but experiments have proved that cultivation 

 could not have converted the native variety into 

 that which we are accustomed to eat. The Flem- 

 ish refugees in Queen Elizabeth's time brought 

 the carrot with them, and planted it first at Sand- 

 wich. The turnip probably found its way hither 

 by the same means. There is a tombstone to be 

 seen still, I believe, in the church-yard of Wim- 

 bourne St. Giles,' in Dorsetshire, erected to the 

 introducer of cabbages, with a representation of 

 a cabbage carved in stone at the foot. Potatoes 

 are for ever associated with Sir Walter Raleigh, 

 since whose time they have achieved their extra- 



ordinary revolution in the kitchen-garden. Mr. 

 Myatt, of Deptford, who first cultivated rh'ibarb 

 for the market, is, I think, still living. Only for- 

 ty years ago he first sent five bunches of this veg- 

 etable to the Borough iSIarket ; of which he pre- 

 vailed upon some one to purchase three by way 

 of experiment. The other two he brought back 

 unsold. 



This is as much as I can tell the reader about 

 vegetables on my walk from the station to Mr. 

 Trench's house. Mr. Trench (whose modesty pre- 

 fers that pseudonym, and who would not be made 

 famous on any account) is quite a model market- 

 gardener. There are members of his profession 

 who have nothing to tell about it, except that it 

 is a ruinous business, to which they have moodi- 

 ly resigned themselves with the determination of 

 losing their capital and bringing themselves and 

 families to the work-house. Some of them have 

 been pursuing this reckless course all their lives, 

 and are bringing up their sons to achieve the 

 work of destruction. They are philanthropically 

 anxious not to tell the world any thing about it. 

 Perhaps they are right, and dread competition. A 

 recital of the sufferings and privations of Robin- 

 son Crusoe has induced many a boy to go to sea. 

 Who knows what might be the result of the most 

 faithful picture of their laborious life, and contin- 

 ual losses ? My market-gardener, however, is 

 not one of these ; he knows how to manage things 

 well enough to get a comfortable income out of 

 his capital and industry ; and he does not think 

 of making a secret that a comfortable income is 

 to be made by such means. The table in Mr. 

 Trench's cool and shady sitting-room is bestrown 

 with letters and papers ; books lie about there 

 every where ; and portraits ornament the walls, 

 as well as one or two testimonials from certain' 

 societies, framed and glazed. A fresh smell of 

 mould and fiowers comes through the window 

 from the green-house, and lingers in the room. 

 Cowper might have written his Task here ; and I, 

 who am by no means poetical, feel as if I could 

 sit down in that worn arm-chair, and while the 

 linnet in his cage at the window chirps and pecks 

 and drops his seed-husks on the floor, could in- 

 dite something to my mistress' eye-brow, above 

 that mediocrity which the gods abhor. 



Mr. Trench offers to walk with me through his 

 hundred acres of ground, warning me not to ex- 

 pect to find any thing very exciting in market- 

 gardening. I reply, that I am not in search of 

 excitement ; but only desirous of seeing with my 

 own eyes something of the routine of those oper- 

 ations, of whose magical result I have heard so 

 often. My modest friend is as anxious to repu- 

 diate the employment of magic as if King James 

 were still upon the thi-one, and Matthew Hop- 

 kins a neighbor of his ; and further reminds me, 

 that only a very small part of that routine can be 

 seen at one time, and that to understand market- 

 gardening it would be necessary to remain there 

 a whole year, going progressively through the 

 Gardener's Calendar. All these objections (which 

 I listen to as I would to the good housewife's 

 depreciation of her own Christmas pudding,) be- 

 ing got over, we go into a field of cabbages, 

 through the green-house again, and across a clean 

 yard paved with pebbles, where men are stacking 

 cabbages in a wagon, apparently w'th the ambi- 

 tion of the builders of 13abel ; and through a row 



