226 THE POSSIBILITIES 



A branch of horticulture which has increased 

 enormously since the first edition of this book 

 was published, is the growing of fruit and vege- 

 tables in greenhouses, in the same way as it is 

 done in the Channel Islands. All round London 

 we are told by Mr. John Weathers in the last 

 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica the 

 hothouse culture has taken a great develop- 

 ment, and, in fact, along the railways which 

 radiate from London in all directions the 

 glass-houses have already become a familiar 

 feature of the landscape. Immense quantities 

 of grapes, tomatoes, figs, and of all sorts of 

 early vegetables are grown at Worthing, where 

 eighty-two acres are covered now with glass- 

 houses, as also in the parish of Cheshunt, in 

 Herts, where the area under hothouses is already 

 130 acres ; while a careful estimate put in 1908 

 the area of individual hothouses in England 

 at about 1,200 acres (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

 vol. xi., p. 266). The elements of this culture 

 having been developed by the experience of 

 the Channel Islands growers, and by the wide 

 extension which hothouses for the growing of 

 flowers had taken long since in this country, 

 it may be concluded from the various evidence 

 we have at hand that on the whole this sort 

 of culture is finding its reward, and is now 

 firmly established. 



