Chap. XXXII.] FLOWER, FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKETS. 535 



San Francisco, but are not so large as the snowy ones of the careful 

 Chinese gardeners. Passing by many vegetables common to 

 London and Paris markets, we observe that the Shallot offered 

 everywhere here is the true kind, a distinct species with a slender 

 bulb and a grey coat, whereas the Shallot now commonly sold in 

 London, and evidently a small variety of the common Onion, is a 

 roundish bulb, with a shining dark brown coat. Some not very 

 important vegetables, almost out of date with us, are here yet 

 seen in abundance, such, for example, as the Eampion, with its 

 long and slender creamy- white roots, which are grown to per- 

 fection in the light rich soil of the market-gardens. Quantities of 

 Green Peas, from the south, and piles of Globe Artichokes, do not 

 interest us much in early spring, because they are obviously pro- 

 ducts of a fairer clime ; but the great feature of the market is the 

 quantity of excellent saladings of every kind, from the long tufts 

 of Chicory (blanched in caves), to the fresh green rosettes of the 

 tender Lettuce, which Paris is never without. Those sent from 

 Paris to the London market, however good in quality, are never 

 seen there to such advantage; their freshness is tarnished by 

 packing and the journey. Though the whole process of growing 

 these saladings is carried on within the very walls of Paris, there 

 are many who suppose them to be (like the Green Peas and the 

 Artichokes from Africa) the produce of a much warmer climate. 

 There is no market where business is more expeditiously done 

 than here ; but what interest us most are the provisions made 

 for the retail trade— for the purchases of the general public. In 

 Paris far more than in London it is the custom to send to the 

 market daily from every class of home. The buyer goes where 

 numbers of competitors are side by side, and where the majority 

 of vegetables exposed are fresh from the gardens. 



In London as regards the quality of the products when de- 

 livered by the grower, there is rarely anything to complain of, 

 for the market-gardener is usually an excellent cultivator ; but 

 the bruising and filth and delay they encounter, owing to im- 

 perfect market-arrangements, before reaching the customer m 

 London, often render"" them barely edible, while the very poor, 

 in buying the cheapest, often get that which is absolutely 



unfit for human food. - 



There is no country in the world where vegetables can be 



2 N 2 



