834 
Report upon the Market-Garden and 
of vegetables prohibits the working classes, the lower middle 
classes, and even many families of the middle class with 
fixed incomes, from having them at their tables save as articles 
of luxury instead of regular essentials of diet. No doubt the 
price of all vegetables is greatly enhanced by the system of 
selling and the unsatisfactory media of distribution, as in the 
first place all market-garden and market-garden farm produce 
is sold by a salesman or factor, whose pay or commission is of 
course added to its cost. These sell it to middle-men, chiefly 
greengrocers, who take the creme de la creme and require their 
handsome profit. Costermongers as a rule take the leavings 
of the greengrocers and make as much profit as they can get out 
of these. Jobbers occasionally buy the crops of the growers, 
either as they grow, or delivered into their carts and waggons 
on the spot. These expect a good " pull " for their venture, 
to which must be added the salesman's pay and the middleman's 
profits. As in the case of almost all home-produced articles 
of food, the producers and the consumers of vegetables are too 
far apart, and before either of these can get their full and proper 
advantages this gulf must be bridged over in some way. 
Factors and middlemen must be content to work for less 
money, or the producers and consumers must co-operate to 
provide huge supply associations in London and all cities and 
large towns, not only for vegetables, but also for fresh butter, 
milk, cream, fowls, and eggs, all of which now are simply 
beyond the reach of the majority of the people. How very few 
are the farmers who attempt to supply these, as they think, 
small things I We calmlv allow the French and the Danes 
to beat us in butter and fancy cheese-making, and to send in 
fowls and eggs at their own price, and have hitherto made but 
little effort to check the importation of " fresh " vegetables from 
France, Holland, Spain, and Africa. It is hoped that we shall 
try to change all this before we finally despair of making 
farming pay in this country. 
Vegetables of all kinds were almost at famine prices in the 
English markets in the early spring of this present year. The 
long continued frost had proved too much for the cabbage-tribe in 
many situations. Those who were lucky enough to preserve any 
kind of greens obtained very high prices for them. Such small 
things as parsley actually were almost worth their weight in 
silver, because so few persons think it worth while to cultivate 
such unconsidered trifles. After the frost came an almost unparal- 
leled period of wet, which prevented the sowing of crops in due 
season, and caused an abundant growth of weeds, which it was 
almost impossible to keep in subjection. Indeed there hardly 
