710 
CROPS FOR PICKLING AND PRESERVING. 
Farmers are constantly being advised to grow special crops, 
now that those on which they have relied for generations no 
longer prove as profitable as might be desired ; and market- 
garden crops are continually referred to as likely to prove 
remunerative. 
Undoubtedly those cultivators who gardened their farms in 
years gone by made good profits, but the advice to place a por- 
tion of the land under garden cropping has been followed to 
such an extent that sensationally high prices are much rarer 
than they were ; whilst it is the few rather than the many who 
are reaping large returns by growing what are known as coarse 
vegetables, and these have usually some special market or 
method of disposing of the produce. There is, moreover, an 
enormous increase in the quantity of vegetables imported, and 
this has acted as a heavy handicap upon the English grower. 
Foreign importations are felt the more severely because almost 
all these vegetables are grown in milder climates, and are placed 
on the English market before those grown in the open air in 
England are ready. As those which come into the market first 
realise the higher prices, the English-grown produce is only 
sold when prices are moderate, so that the extreme rates which 
were relied upon to meet the expense of the special methods 
necessary for the production of these crops are not realised, and 
the profitable nature of the business is much diminished. 
At the same time it must be remembered that the popula- 
tion has increased, and that each individual eats more vegetables 
than formerly ; nevertheless, there is truth in the saying that it 
is easier to grow vegetables than to sell them. The relation of 
the pickling interest to the production and consumption of 
green vegetables is much closer than might at first sight appear ; 
indeed, from the grower's point of view, they are almost in- 
separable. Most of the crops that are pickled are also used as 
vegetables, and in some seasons it may pay better to sell them 
for immediate consumption than for pickling purposes. Some 
portions of such crops, again, may not be suitable for pickling, 
whilst quite unobjectionable as vegetables. Thus, in those dis- 
tricts where pickling is practised, the pickling and gardening 
interests cannot, as a whole, be conveniently separated. 
The increased attention paid to the growth of vegetable! 
has made the business more precarious — it was always specu- 
lative — and the prices realised are sometimes far from remuuera- 
