MARKET GARDEN CULTIVATION DURING QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN. 395 



did, selling almost identically similar produce — a sturdy, kindly 

 personage, with a certain dry humour and considerable indivi- 

 duality. Both at home and at market you will find him thrifty 

 and industrious. His business is his study, and well he knows 

 what to grow, and when and how to grow it. He has no specu- 

 lation in his character, and he is quite content that others should 

 test the value of new varieties before he leaves the cultivation of 

 old and approved favourites. Occasionally, however, he devotes 

 himself to a special line of vegetable or fruit, and in some cases 

 has produced valuable and improved varieties. If you care to 

 converse with him he can recall many happy times of interest in 

 the past, and can quote you prices for produce which the pur- 

 chasing public may be glad we are never likely to see again. 

 Well, if we must lose our respected old friend, let us be thankful 

 that his place is being so well filled with sons and successors 

 possessing all the sterling good qualities of the father, and in 

 addition thereto a superior education, newer and wider ideas of 

 business, and an energy, perseverance, and skill in production 

 which have raised our market gardening industry into a position 

 of the highest national importance. 



I propose to take the productions of our present market 

 gardeners in the following order: — 1, Vegetables; 2, Fruits; 

 3, Flowers ; each of which may also be subdivided into out-of-door 

 or naturally grown varieties, and in-door or forced varieties. 



VEGETABLES— Open Grown. 



With regard to naturally grown vegetables I may say that 

 the cultural details of sixty years ago, with very few exceptions, 

 remain the standard of the highest present perfection. It is in 

 the direction of earlier and improved varieties, and in the in- 

 crease in quantities rather than in the methods of culture, that 

 a comparison will mostly tell. I do not propose to enumerate 

 the kinds of Vegetables or the varieties which have been succes- 

 sively cultivated during the period under review, but I propose 

 rather to touch upon a few marked cases where important 

 varieties have been introduced, or new and extended fields of 

 culture have been opened up. 



Asparagus very fitly commences my list, as its cultivation 

 gives a striking illustration of remarkable progress. Many acres 



g 2 



