186 



HORTICULTURE. 



Market their employment, perhaps in a remote part of the 

 hardens, country, and grown by him. In this way there is year- 



""V"" * ]y procured a large stock for sale, and which in gene- 

 ral is not only better saved, but more genuine than 

 what can easily be got in a private garden. 



Throughout the kingdom there are public nurseries 

 near all the principal towns. At Edinburgh there are 

 several, which it may confidently be affirmed are kept 

 in a state of greater order and neatness than any in 

 the south ; they are particularly distinguished for the 

 excellence of their seedling forest-trees. The number 

 and the flourishing state of the public nurseries may be 

 adduced as a strong proof of the general attention paid 

 to horticultural improvements throughout the country. 

 Towards this they afford great facilities, furnishing, 

 when wanted, every possible variety of plants, at pri- 

 ces comparatively low. In one important article we 

 believe all of them are deficient, fruit trees. These, 

 indeed, they contain in sufficient numbers ; but their 

 quality is often doubtful. This is particularly the case 

 with apples and pears. The grafts for these are often 

 collected from the nursery lines, instead of being taken, 

 as they ought to be, from bearing branches of fruitful 

 trees. Sometimes, no doubt, they are selected from 

 fruit-bearing trees in gentlemen's gardens in different 

 parts of the country ; but it is frequently impossible for 

 nurserymen to procure grafts of the desired kinds in 

 this way. If any judicious nurseryman, therefore, would 

 form a collection of fruit-trees of his own, to be main- 

 tained in a fruit-bearing state, he would thus not only be 

 certain as to the kind which he propagated, but have at 

 his command yearly a moderate quantity of proper grafts 

 from the fruitful boughs of bearing trees. He would 

 thus, no doubt, be limited in the number of his grafts, 

 and might find it necessary to ask a higher price for 

 his plants ; but this would most cheerfully be given by 

 judicious purchasers. A nursery orchard of this kind 

 could only, with propriety, be formed on ground the 

 property of the nurseryman, or of which he held a very 

 long lease. Till some such establishment take place, 

 gentlemen who wish to avoid disappointment, must, in 

 general, be content to graft their own fruit-trees. 



Market Gardens. 



Market 37. The market gardens near the metropolis are won- 



Sardens. derful in extent, and managed in general in the best 

 style. High rents are paid for the ground, so that as 

 many crops as possible must be taken, and those must 

 be of the most productive sorts. At the same time, 

 such is the competition in Covent Garden market, that 

 unless the produce be excellent of its kind, it will be re- 

 jected. The accumulated heaps of kitchen vegetables 

 to be seen very early in a summer morning in this 

 place, are quite surprising, and would confound many 

 who have frequently passed through the market in the 

 day time, after vast quantities have been sold, and car- 

 ried off by retailers, and other quantities have been 

 placed out of sight. If from an inspection of Covent 

 Garden green-stalls, one may judge of the general state 

 of horticulture in Britain, it may be said to approach per- 

 fection. It cannot however be denied, that although 

 the kitchen vegetables exhibited for sale in this mar- 

 ket excel in size, they are inferior in flavour, and per- 

 haps in wholesomeness, to those raised at a distance 

 from London. Much of the land here occupied as mar- 

 ket-gardens has been heavily cropped every year for 

 perhaps a century past, and the soil has been annually 

 replenished with manure from the city. It thus ac- 

 quires a grossness calculated to give size certainly at 



the expence of delicacy of taste. The vegetables of the 

 London markets, however, ought not to be judged of 

 from specimens to be met with in taverns : these are of- 

 ten kept steeping in water for a day, or perhaps two 

 or three days, as if it were intended to extract all fla- 

 vour, or otherwise sweating in a heaped basket in the 

 cellar, the alliaceous and strong-smelling plants taint- 

 ing the others. Every one possessed of a garden is 

 well aware of the superiority of pot-herbs when re- 

 cently gathered ; but those sent to the London market 

 are gathered and packed on one day ; they are carried, 

 by the indefatigably industrious gardeners, during 

 night, either in waggons, or by boats on the Thames, 

 so as to reach the market very early the next morning. 

 Even in this way, a complete day and night must 

 elapse before the inhabitant of London can set on his 

 table the freshest vegetables to be procured in the 

 markets. But as the gardeners come to town only 

 three times a-week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sa- 

 turdays, pot-herbs must very frequently be two or three 

 days kept before they be used. They must therefore 

 unavoidably suffer some deterioration ; and the wonder 

 is, to see an enormously overgrown city so amply and 

 regularly supplied, and with articles so excellent in 

 their kind. 



38. Fuller, in his " Worthies," fixes the date of the 

 establishment of a market for pot-herbs at London, to 

 be 1590 ; but Lyson properly remarks, that entries oc- 

 cur in dinner bills of fare, detailed in the account of 

 Queen Elizabeth's progresses, which shew, that " pars- 

 ley, sorrel, and strong herbs, with peason," were to be 

 purchased at least twenty years before that period. 

 Rathripe or early peas were then accounted a dainty 

 for a queen ; and they still continue to be a dainty, 

 selling, when they first come in, at a crown or even 

 half a guinea a pottle (less than a quart.) Other ar- 

 ticles, when produced early, give prices high in propor- 

 tion ; asparagus, 6s. or 7s. a hundred; and early po- 

 tatoes, 3s. 6d. a pound. These and several other culi- 

 nary plants are therefore extensively forced by the Lon- 

 don market-gardeners ; that is, they are forwarded by 

 the artificial heat either of a hot-bed or of a flued pit. 

 Some idea may be formed of the encouragement given 

 to horticulture by the demand of the metropolis, from 

 considering the extent of ground occupied in the pro- 

 duction of kitchen vegetables and fruit within 12 miles 

 of London. Mr Lyson, above named, author of the " Ac- 

 count of the Environs of London,'' and who, in the 

 course of his minute investigations and inquiries, had a 

 good opportunity of forming an accurate calculation, es- 

 timates that at least 5000 acres are employed, within 

 that circuit, in raising kitchen roots and pot-herbs, 

 exclusive altogether of late potatoes, and of vegetables 

 raised for cow-feeders. He states that 800 acres 

 are cropped with fruit, including apples, pears, goose- 

 berries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries. Not 

 fewer than 1700 acres are planted with potatoes for 

 the market ; and 1200 with cabbages, turnips, and pars- 

 nips, for the feeding of milch cows. The raisers of 

 these articles are properly farming gardeners : they ma- 

 nure very highly, and raise garden crops, and then re- 

 fresh their land by sowing with corn. They abound 

 near Camberwell and Deptford. The production of 

 medicinal herbs employs about 300 acres ; and from 400 

 to 500 are in the hands of nurserymen. In this way, 

 the employment of about 9500 acres of the richest and 

 most highly manured lands in the vicinity of London is 

 accounted for. At Hoxton is a very extensive and well 

 conducted market garden, Mr Grange's ; and this may 



Market 

 Gardens. 



