74 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Mar. 



MARKET GARDENING- AROUND LONDON. 



Genkral Rkmarks touching Rotatio.v of Crops, 

 kc. — If wo take a five-acro piece of pround, say in 

 Novcnibor, wo shall find it full of cabbages, wliioli 

 being ])lantod out about the 25th of October, will be 

 stronnr healthy ])l:uits. The moment these are off, 

 the land i^^ apaiii trenched and cropped witli early 

 celerv, in well dunged trenches six feet apart, with 

 two or throe rows of lettuces or colcworts in the 

 middle : lor market gardeners do not mould up celery 

 until it is very large, (often eighteen inches high,) 

 60 there is plenty of time f jr a crop of cabbages, 

 cole worts, or lettuces, to come to maturity. When 

 the celery is removed, the ground is cropped with 

 winter greens, and again cleared off; for nothing 

 pays so well as the London greens or young unheart- 

 cd cabbages. In November Mr. Frrcii, of Fulham, 

 has often upwards of twenty acres of these, besides 

 twenty acres of cabbages ; every hole and corner 

 under trees, and all spare places being full. Wiien 

 the five-acred piece is cleared of coleworts, say by 

 ,r the first of March, it is again dunged and trenched 

 ' ^ and sown with onions, and very often lettuces are 

 planted in the beds as well as in the alleys. When 

 the onions are off, the ground is trenched and planted 

 with cabbages or coleworts, &c.: next spring a crop 

 of cauliflowers, gherkin cucumbers, French beans, 

 or scarlet runners, is taken off; but the grand point 

 in the course of rotation, is to be continually sowing, 

 and whatever plants are ready when the ground is 

 empty to plant these. The land can well sustain so 

 much cropping on account of the heavy dungings, 

 trenchings, and hoeings which it receives. If you 

 ask a market gardener what is to succeed this or that 

 crop, the answer is, "Don't know, it depends upon 

 what is ready for jdanting." Continued trenching 

 two spades deep for any crop seems expensive* but 

 a strong Irish laborer will turn over from twelve to 

 fourteen rods a day, with comparative ease ; and I 

 may here state that if it were not for the Irish labor- 

 er, the prices of vegetables would be much higher. 

 j> Market gardeners know that after an active crop 

 the top soil for several inches deep is entirely cx- 

 hauste.l, and hence the reason for continual trench- 

 ing, in order to bring up the top soil that but a few 

 months before had been turned down, with a large 

 proportion of dung, to enrich it and fit it for active 

 use along with the half decayed manure. 



Market gardening is well conducted about London, 

 and if young gardeners were to spend only one year 

 with such men as Messrs. Fitch, of Fulham, it 

 would teach them a lesson which would amply repay 

 a twelvemonth's hard labor. They would there be 

 taught how to grow digestible vegetables, and not 

 those Btunted blue cabbages and other things that 

 are, in too many cases, huddled up in walled-in gar- 

 dens. I am almost certain that the day will arrive 

 when the latter will be converted into forcing groimds 

 and when vegetables will be grown in the open nidds, 

 which are their proper places. If a farmer were to 

 Bond his son to be a laSorer in a market gardrn for a 

 year or two, the vahie of such a school to such a man 

 in after life would be great to himself, his landlord, 

 and to the country at large. The expensive system 

 of a market garden would not be required in a farm ; 

 it could not be maintained ; but it would sliow him 

 that one acre cultivated by the spade is equal to five 

 by the plow. We know that some market gardeners 

 use the plow ; but how does it pay ? Their things 



are always the last sold, and that for the most part 

 to the liawker, whose name will toll the price ob- 

 tained. It is, however, necessary to have a scarifier 

 plow in all market gardens, in order to tear up the 

 earth after the carts in wet weather. 



Some years ago I took the late Mr. Smith, of 

 Deanston, over Messrs. Fitch's grounds. Till then 

 he had no knowledge of the enormous expenses of 

 keeping a large gan#[;n. " I have not seen," said he, 

 "on the whole loO acres, a weed ; all the ground 

 exhibits a fine level surface ; every inch is cropped ; 

 all the paths regular ; the cart-roads in good order ; 

 the hedges of the boundaries very dwarf ; no ditches, 

 and all the large plantations of apples, pears, and 

 plums, amounting to fifty acres, with every young 

 shoot made during the summer, pruned down to a 

 couple or three buds from last year's wood." Pruned 

 after the manner of currant bushes, they look well, 

 and bear enormous crops. The ground under the 

 tree is all cropped with rhubarb, currants, gooseber- 

 ries ; and during the winter with coleworts and cab- 

 bages. I have seen eight acres of cabbages in seed 

 beds, after the rest are all picked out for spring cab- 

 bages. Every spare piece of ground is filled ; when 

 the asparagus haulm is cut down, the ground is 

 forlced over, and all planted with coleworts, alleys and 

 all ; and when the rhubarb leaves die down, this 

 ground is also filled : so that altogether, besides the 

 other crops, there must be several hundred thousand 

 heads of greens for winter market. All liquid ma- 

 nure from dunghills is collected into a large tank ; 

 this is conveyed to and distributed over the ground 

 before digging ; but the great objection to the use 

 of sewage water after the crop is in, is that it fills 

 up the pores of the earth, cements the mold, and pre- 

 vents heat and air from acting on the roots. 



Some market gardeners keep large herds of pigs, 

 which live night and day among the hot dung, and 

 subsist upon the corn that they pick out of the straw 

 and dimg, as well as on green food. Mr. Fitch 

 keeps twelve horses, whose whole imployment is to 

 cart goods to the various markets, bring home dung, 

 and convey it to vacant pieces of ground, which occur 

 every week. The carts and wagons in use in market 

 gardens have generally broad wheels. The wagons 

 are very large, and the carts will hold as much as a 

 Suffolk wagon. The laborers employed by Messrs. 

 Fitch on 150 acres, amount to about 70 during win- 

 ter, and in summer to about 150. The rent per acre 

 is from 9/. to 10/., the tithes being from 10s. to 12». 

 per acre. Men's wages are 2s. per day ; women, 

 from Is, to Is. Gd. Some idea of the amount of la- 

 bor in small matters will be conceived, when I state 

 that the whole of the frames, amounting to 1000 

 lights, are all painted and repaired every autumn. 

 The whole of the hand-lights, 4000 in number, are 

 also repaired ; and every description of vegetable is 

 washed before it is sent to market. When men are 

 at piece-work, they receive 2^d. per rod, for trench- 

 ing two spades deep ; thus an acre highly manured, 

 using cart-loads instead of barrowfuls, and trenching 

 with spade, instead of shallow digging, or what is 

 worse, using a plovv, pays just in proportion to the 

 way in wliich it is treated. — /. Culkill, in London 

 Gardeners' Chronicle. 



(t/** Will some of our correspondents favor us 

 with a description of a first rate Fruit .Market 

 lydgon, with cost, !k.c.? 



