Market Gardens. 179 



arable was applied to grazing purposes. The 

 subject is one which has always possessed 

 great interest ; but it is now invested with 

 a new and special importance, and I am 

 tempted to transcribe from Lysons some 

 farther remarks on the state of market gar- 

 dens near the metropolis in old times, and 

 at the period when he wrote (1792). After 

 stating that the culture of vegetables for sale 

 commenced about 1590, he proceeds : 



"In some bills of fare for dinners in 1373, I find 

 several charges for parsley, sorrel, and strong herbs, 

 and one charge of I2d. for two dishes of buttered 

 peason on the 1st of July, which, supposing the value 

 of money to have been then four times greater, would 

 now at that season purchase about eight pecks." [He 

 then repeats what Fuller says above about early peas.] 

 "What they cost in his time he [Fuller] does not 

 inform us ; the usual price now, at their first coming, 

 is from about five shillings to half a guinea a pottle, 

 afterwards from ten to fifteen shillings the half- 



" Gardens for the raising of vegetables for sale 

 were first cultivated about Sandwich, in Kent. The 

 example was soon followed near the metropolis, whose 

 markets are the chief vent for this produce. In pro- 

 portion as this great town has increased in population 

 and opulence, the demand for every species of garden 



