Market-garden Farm Competition, 1879. 
833 
these prizes was to extend and improve the cultivation of 
vegetables and herbs, and to bring a better supply of these 
almost essential elements of food within the reach not only of 
the artisans, mechanics, and workers of all kinds who rarely 
can get them, but also of the very many members of what are 
styled the lower middle classes, dwelling in London and other 
cities and towns, in whose households fresh vegetables are almost 
equally scarce commodities. The Mansion House Committee 
may also have desired to point a moral f rom the success of market- 
gardeners for the benefit of agriculturists, and to show them that 
they may profitably add the culture of at least the most hardy, 
and most easily grown vegetables to their usual routine of farm 
production. Hints of this kind, leading to a practical result, 
will be gladly welcomed in this much perplexed, transitional state 
of agriculture, where the values of the present staple products 
of the farm are materially depreciated by foreign importations. 
Those fortunate market-gardeners who live within the charmed 
area — the radial limit of twenty miles prescribed by the rules 
of this competition — hardly need fear that their occupation 
would be gone, though their balance-sheets and methods of 
culture were proclaimed from the house-tops. They have the 
great advantage of being within reach of London by road, so 
that they are enabled to load up to market with produce and 
back with manure. They have also a suitable soil, and an esta- 
blished business, with the special knowledge that is necessary 
to carry it on. Market-garden farmers, who are within easy 
distance of London, equally share these advantages of esta- 
blishment, experience, and a trained staff of labourers, and 
have besides, in common with the market-gardeners, a local 
reputation and a name in very many cases. Thus one man is 
famous for his celery. The lettuces of this one are peculiarly 
crisp ; while the cabbages of that one are always succulent. But 
there is ample room for many more vegetable growers. Though 
occasionally there may be a glut of certain vegetables, which is 
to a great extent caused by the imperfect methods of distribu- 
tion, to be explained farther on, there would always be a very 
large and increasing demand for vegetables at a fair price, which 
would at the same time remunerate the producers. It is said 
that the importation of vegetables from foreign countries in- 
terferes most considerably and will interfere much more each 
year with the home growers : it will be shown, however, that 
the supply from abroad comes for the most part before the 
English vegetables are ready, also that the cost of carriage 
is a heavy burden upon the importers. 
In most seasons and at most times in each season the price 
VOL. XV. — S. S. 3 K 
