428 uropean Agriculture and Rural Economy. 



ago, it was calculated that there were two thousand acres cultivated by the 

 spade, and eight thousand by the spade and plough conjointly. The extent 

 of cultivation must, of course, be at present much greater. It is said of 

 one individual that he had eighty acres in asparagus, and of another that he 

 had sixty, and that the forming of the beds was estimated at jClOO per acre. 

 This undoubtedly was under the old system of growing asparagus, when 

 the soil was to be taken out to a depth of some feet, and a bed of stones 

 placed at the bottom, and other expensive arrangements. Now, asparagus 

 is grown almost as easily as carrots or celery, it only requiring to be first 

 grown in a nursery or seed bed, and then transplanted in the bottom of deep 

 furrows or trenches, made two feet distance from each other, well bed- 

 ded with manure, and the bed itself kept constantly clean, and annually 

 covered with a loading of manure in the autumn, which must be dug in 

 with a fork in the spring. This, in three years from the seed, gives as 

 good and abundant a plant as under the old method of trenching and bot- 

 toming with stones, and laying a foot of manure on the stones. 



The amount of vegetables sent by some individual salesmen is enormous. 

 The principal market-days are three times in a week, but Saturday is the 

 principal day ; and it is confidently stated — though in relating it I fear that 

 some persons may think the credulity of their too-confiding countryman has 

 been practised upon — that a single grower has been known to send, in one 

 day, more than nineteen hundred bushels of peas in the pod, and seven or 

 eight loads of cabbages, averaging eighteen hundred cabbages each; and at 

 another season, from the same farm, fourteen or fifteen hundred baskets of 

 sprouts will be sent in one day, and in the course of the year from five to 

 six thousand tons of potatoes. 



The great success of the Market Gardeners is explained in 

 the following paragraph : — 



The eminent success of the market-gardeners near London, depends on 

 several circumstances in their management, which I will point out. In the 

 first place, the land is thoroughly drained, so as not only to cut oflf the 

 springs which might render the wetness of the land permanent, but like- 

 wise to carry off speedily the rain which falls. In the next place, the land 

 is completely trenched, to the depth of from two to three feet, with the 

 spade. This serves two purposes ; first, to assist in the drainage by giving 

 a free passage into the principal conduits of the rain as it comes down ; and 

 next, to enable the roots of the plants freely to extend themselves in search of 

 food. In trenching, it is necessary to keep the top soil at the top, and not to 

 bring the lower stratum to the surface, or to suflfer a large portion of the 

 cold earth to be mingled with the rich mould. This requires some little 

 calculation. The soil of the first trench made across the field must be com- 

 pletely thrown out ; and so likewise the top soil of the second trench. The 

 bottom soil of the second trenching is then to be thrown into the vacant 

 space of the first, and the top soil of the third line upon that. Things will 

 then come rightly into their places, the bottom soil being always thrown upon 



