VEGETABLES FOR MARKET. 



363 



it ? Who has not heard from friends that certain vegetables are " awfully 

 dear " or " not procurable," while precisely the same kinds have been 

 shot out upon the stones at the market for the scavenger to clear away — 

 unsaleable? The number of young women and men who "live in" at 

 the wholesale and retail establishments seldom get any vegetables beyond 

 the Potato upon their menu — they are too dear, or there is too much 

 trouble in preparing them for cooking. The costermongers perform an 

 invaluable service to the metropolis in bringing supplies of vegetables 

 that are abundant, at cheap prices, within the reach of the dwellers in 

 thickly populated areas, and even to suburban streets their voice is gone 

 out, much to the chagrin of the highly rated greengrocer. It is to be 

 hoped that, in those metropolitan districts where the " coster " question 

 is acute, the authorities will bear in mind the highly important part he 

 plays in supplying fresh and wholesome vegetable food at cheap prices to 

 the masses and, while making all proper regulation for the highways, will 

 provide the coster with ample facilities for carrying on his calling. 



Who that has seen the dried, drooping, melancholy specimens of the 

 vegetable world exposed for sale in the shop of some small suburban 

 greengrocer has not wished for some means of preventing the perpetra- 

 tion of this libel upon the market vegetable ? There is as much difference 

 between shoe-leather and Cabbage as there is between this stale outcast of 

 the Brassica tribe and the succulent Cabbage you cut fresh from your 

 garden. Can you wonder that the English are not vegetable-eating 

 people as they should be ? Who that has seen vegetables of his own 

 growing after they have been through the various stages between his 

 yard and the retailer's shop, and has compared them with what they were 

 when first fresh from the field, has not wished for some plan to enable 

 townspeople to discover what vegetables really are ? And if this is the 

 case within the radius of horse carriage, what must it be when railway 

 carriage introduces another handling or two ? 



The system of direct delivery to the shop of the retailer is slowly 

 growing ; perhaps, with the extension of motor traction, it may become 

 easier. 



The increase of local municipal markets like Brentford would be a 

 great help ; they would lessen the distance between grower and buyer, and 

 their nearness would induce the retailer to attend the market oftener 

 instead of getting two days' supply in one. 



What I have said mostly applies, I am aware, to London, with which I 

 am most familiar ; but during a tour through the principal northern and 

 midland towns, with business in view, I found that they were even worse 

 supplied than London with fresh vegetables. 



Are my readers calling these considerations commonplace, and com- 

 paring them unfavourably with those recondite and much more attractive 

 themes usually dealt with in our Society's Journal ? Unfortunately, in 

 thinking of market vegetables from a market growers' standpoint, the 

 question of "market " presents itself with dominating urgency, at times 

 obscuring the whole landscape, out of all proportion, perhaps, to true 

 perspective. But what is the use of growing vegetables for market if your 

 market fails you when you have grown them ? 



Two tendencies may be noticed as having been at work in recent 



E 2 



