64 The Profitable Culture of Vegetables. 



methods. Under such conditions it is not at all difficult to 

 take six or seven crops in the season from the same soil, and 

 moreover the produce is earlier, of better average quality, 

 stands thicker on the ground, and brings higher prices than 

 does that grown in the usual way. 



Cultivation on similar lines to those followed in the Paris 

 gardens has been carried on for generations in many English 

 gardens to a very limited extent and for special purposes, but 

 French gardeners have elaborated the culture into a system 

 which embraces the whole garden and the year round, until 

 it has developed into an important national industry which 

 produces both for home production and for export. 



When first the French system of growing early salad crops 

 was brought prominently before public notice many English 

 gardeners asserted that our climate, being humid and scant 

 of sunlight in the winter and early spring months, was quite 

 unsuitable for this culture. Experience has proved that 

 this objection is mistaken ; during the few years in which 

 the system has been in operation here on a commercial 

 scale there has been no difficulty in placing on the market 

 early produce quite equal in every respect to that which is 

 imported. 



If the wonderful crops obtained by the maraichers cannot be 

 ascribed to their climate neither can their natural soil be held 

 accountable, because after a garden has been in operation for 

 a few years the original soil is scarcely brought into use at all. 

 In old-established gardens the whole of the open ground is 

 practically a mass of light vegetable mould, a foot or more in 

 depth. This mould was originally introduced into the garden 

 as straw manure for hot-beds, but time and use have broken 

 up and decomposed it so thoroughly that it has become a light, 

 rich, porous soil, and the use of this material for all cultural 

 purposes makes the maraichers quite independent of the 

 natural soil. So systematic has the manufacture of this 

 artificial soil become that it is a regular stipulation that each 

 may, on quitting his tenancy, carry his soil to a certain depth 

 away with him. 



The Paris gardens are, as a rule, comparatively small, 

 varying from half an acre to two acres in extent. Each is 



