420 
Market- Gardening. 
former, the j)olitical economist, and, not least, of the affii- 
culturist. To this hitter it is a subject of paramount interest. 
Science can, and does, tell us what we put into the land : it 
remains to us to prove how, by the exercise of our craft, we can 
turn into food the valuable elements, too many of which seem at 
present to elude us in our efforts to recover them. 
1 must, in conclusion, express my great obligation to Mr. 
Hope, V. C. ; Mr. Morgan; Mr. Bailey Denton, C.E. ; and 
other gentlemen who have most kindly given me information, 
or permitted me to inspect their farms. 
Tliorpelands, Northampton, 
July Snl, 1871. 
XVII. — Market- Gardening. By H. EvERSHED. 
The quantity of vegetables eaten by all classes of society largely 
increased during the last century, and a much greater and more 
general advance in this direction has been made by the present 
and the last generations. The actual increase of population has 
also enlarged the demand for vegetables, and hence a new branch 
of agricultural industry has been created. Fuller shows us the 
beginnings of market-gardening two hundred years ago ; he 
wrote in 1662, "Since gardening hath crept out of Holland to 
Sandwich in Kent, and thence into this county (Surrey) where, 
though they have given six pounds an acre and upwards, they 
have made their rent, lived comfortably, and set many people on 
work." In the same Thames-side district, lying between Bat- 
tersea and Kew, this Flemish industry still flourishes on the light 
soil that suits it, and the Flemish implement of tillage or its 
substitute, the American fork, is used in cultivating the gardens. 
But it is only articles of limited consumption, such as cauli- 
flowers, radishes, asparagus, forced vegetables, &c., that are 
produced on this original site. The more common and necessary 
vegetables are consumed in such enormous quantities that more 
space, as well as implements of more power, are needed for their 
production. London, too, has encroached on the former scene of 
spade-labour, and the old market-gardens in Surrey have been 
devoted to a large extent to other purposes. 
East and west of London the soil is of very similar character, 
consisting of light land on gravel, equally suitable for vege- 
tables ; but in the east the subsoil is without veins of clay, and 
the district, therefore, is without fruit-trees. The extension of 
garden farming in Essex, with horse-tillage and steam-cultiva- 
tion, in one instance, has been rapid. A wealthy grower of 
