PREFACE 



Lord Onslow's Committee, appointed in 1903 to investi- 

 gate subjects connected with commercial fruit culture, 

 recommended that a sub-department of the Board of 

 Agriculture be established to deal with horticulture and 

 pomology. If substantial official recognition be accorded 

 to that suggestion, important benefits may accrue to 

 market gardening as a form of intensive cultivation 

 which greatly concerns landowners, tenants, and the 

 public. Parliamentary aid is urgently needed in the 

 promotion of many reforms, and with such assistance 

 on judicious lines considerable and profitable advance 

 might be made. 



In the following pages an attempt has been made to 

 indicate the directions in which cultivators can help 

 their own progress with advantage, and to show the 

 methods adopted by many growers who have made 

 commercial gardening a highly successful business. 

 The author's only object has been to set out in plain 

 language the results of thirty years' practical experience 

 and close study in the United Kingdom and on the 

 Continent. 



Cultural details of all the principal crops are fully 

 dealt with in other manuals of this series, • 



R. L. C. 



vii 



