288 



MARKET-GARDENING. 



[Marcli 1895. 



turnips, carrots, peas, and French beans from France, the Canary 

 Islands, Madeira, and Algeria arrive long before English market- 

 gardeners can supply these vegetables, and when their own 

 expensive crops are ready, the fancy prices have passed into 

 foreigners' pockets, and, as market-gardeners say, the " edge of 

 the appetite for this early produce has been taken off." The same 

 applies to salads, notably to lettuces, which are imported in 

 large quantities from France and the Canary Islands as ea.rly as 

 January, months before English market-gai deners can send them 

 into market. This importation continues until June, when the 

 demand for young crisp lettuces has been satisfied. A few years 

 ago, cucumbers yielded considerable profits to home-growers ; 

 but now they are imported so early and so largely from Holland^ 

 and are usually so plentiful and cheap, that many market- 

 gardeners in Great Britain have ceased to grow them. Radishes, 

 another very profitable crop in past years, are sent in quantities 

 from February to April from Paris, St. Malo, and the Channel 

 Islands, completely forestalling English produce. Very large 

 importations are made from Holland of beetroot and red cabbage 

 for pickling, which until recently were profitably cultivated in 

 England. 



But it is in the case of onions that there has latterly been 

 the most extraordinary increase in importation. Onions were 

 regarded as an almost safe-paying crop if the weather were 

 favourable, but in the last two years prices have been so forced 

 down bv foreign competition that in many years, especially in 

 1894, the growers have lost heavily. In some instances, it was 

 impossible to dispose of onions in the last season. 



In 1875, 169,456 bushels of onions, valued at 821,316^., were 

 imported into Great Britain, mainly from Holland, Belgium, 

 France, and Portugal ; Holland being by far the largest exporting 

 country. The amount of this importation in 1884, was 3,474,746 

 bushels, valued at 481,427^., from Germany, Holland (which sent 

 1,481,543 bushels), Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and 

 Egypt. In 1894, no less than 5,288,512 bushels of onions, of the 

 value of 765,049L, came from abroad. 



It is noteworthy that the imports of onions from Holland 

 have considerably decreased since 1885, but those from Germany, 

 France, and Spain have much increased. The receipts of onions 

 from Egypt have more than quadrupled in the past decade. 



Potatoes, again, were formerly important sources of profit to 

 British market-gardeners. Early and quick-growing varieties 

 were put in and dug early to supply the demand for new 

 potatoes, and other crops were got in and taken off* during the 

 autumn. Importations of very early potatoes from Algeria, 

 France, Lisbon, Malta, Teneriffe, and Holland interfere much 

 with English growers of potatoes, and threaten to interfere with 

 potato-growers in the Channel Islands, whose potatoes are not 

 ready in any quantity until the firsst week in May. The arrivals 

 of new potatoes commence about Christmas-time and continue in 



