Market-garden Farm Competition, 1879. 841 
pected to hoe them over three times. Carrots, sown broadcast, 
are put out for hoeing at from 3/. to 4/. per acre ; parsnips that 
had been drilled in, at 21. 5s. to 21. 10s. per acre. Preparing vege- 
tables for market is also a costly process, as such things as 
carrots, parsnips, radishes, celery, onions, and lettuces have to be 
taken to sheds and washed, and done' up in bunches for market. 
Upon Mr. Gay's market-garden there is suitable convenience 
for these operations, and great pains are taken to send away the 
produce fresh and clean. 
Mr. William Gays Market-garden. 
This market-garden, to which the Judges awarded the second 
prize, is situated at Corbetstye, about five miles south-east of 
Romford, upon the London Clay formation. Its soil is of a 
lighter colour * than that at Barking, containing less iron and 
more sand in its composition, and not so valuable, nor so well 
suited for gardening purposes, being more inclined to cake or 
crust over, after a heavy rain. The superficial soil is from two 
to four feet in thickness, and the gravel bed immediately under 
it is from five to six feet deep. Mr. W. Gay pays 21. 2s. per 
acre rent for the land, and holds it upon a twenty-one years' 
lease. There are several acres of useful meadow-land, part of 
which was fed off by two useful dairy cows, and part laid in 
for hay, that promised to give a heavy cut. 
Like his namesake, the occupier of this land has no stereo- 
typed rotation of crops, but is guided by circumstances in this 
respect, and he endeavours to get, and usually succeeds in getting, 
two crops every year from the greater part of the land. His 
arrangements for the present year comprised : 
Four and a half acres of onions, succeeding coleworts, which 
had been preceded by cucumbers and scarlet-runners. These were 
very good and were found very free from weeds at each visita- 
tion. In a piece of scarlet-runners of nearly three acres there 
was a fairly good plant ; coleworts had been taken before these, 
and onions before the coleworts. Next came ten acres of pota- 
toes, principally Shaws and Dalmahoys ; after these — coleworts, 
sprouting broccoli, seed-bed, and small crops, put in early and 
the ground heavily manured. The cucumbers upon the next 
piece of two and a half acres were an indifferent plant, as much 
of the seed had rotted in the ground, and the slugs had been 
busy among the few plants that were above the ground. Spring 
* The brown colour of the London Clay at and near the surface is merely a 
colour of decomposition, the protoxide of iron that gives the blueish tinge per- 
oxidating by exposure to atmospheric action. — ' Memoirs of the Geological Survey 
of Great Britain,' vol. iv. part i p. 73. 
