Market- Gardening. 
421 
vegetables is only lately deceased who was among tlic first to 
emigrate from the older site in Bedfordshire. He arrived in the 
new colony without capital, and without the skill to read or 
write a market-tally, and lived to occupy a farm where more 
than 500 acres of vegetables were grown every year. 
The Essex District. 
The Essex district extends from Stratford, bricks and mortar 
permitting, to West Ham, and thence through East Ham, to 
Barking, Rainham, Dagenham, Hornchurch, and Romford. The 
parishes of Aveley and Purflcet are at present, but may nat 
long be, beyond the boundary of vegetable growing. They are 
now famous for early peas, and on June 19th this year large gangs 
of women were picking the first crop. At Rainham strawberries 
were begun on the same day, and potato-digging had commenced 
a few days earlier. The crops are all seven or eight days earlier 
than they would be under ordinary farming, without the warm 
coat of manure. The subsoil of the* Thames Valley is a drift of 
sharp small flint, or gravel ; it is generally covered with good 
light loam, which is in many cases several feet in depth, and is 
continually enriched by heavy dressings of dung. This light 
soil being peculiarly absorbent of air, heat, and moisture, and 
admitting of the rapid decomposition of organic matter, is 
naturally suitable for vegetables, and produces good crops of 
corn when, after a heavy green crop, it is not in too high con- 
dition. Elms are the native timber-trees of the district, growing 
in rows to a great height with leafy trunks, trimmed to resemble 
monstrous specimens of Jersey cabbage-stems or Brussels sprouts, 
with a cabbage on the top. Near Rainham, however, there are 
several noble avenues of unmutilated trees, which ornament as 
well as shelter the country. The water-level is generally at from 
four feet to ten feet from the surface. 
This district takes most of the manure produced in the eastera 
part of London, and it supplies a large portion of the fresh, 
bulky vegetables consumed in the metropolis between spring and 
autumn. The whole of the produce is sent by road, and, except 
near a river wharf, or close to a station, the manure is brought 
by the waggons on their return from market. The outlay on the 
farms, as will presently be shown, generally exceeds 20/. an 
acre, and requires such a return as is yielded only by garden- 
crops and garden-farming. The growth of corn has been almost 
abandoned. 
In this district of large garden-farms the fields are seldom 
less than ten acres in extent, and are generally from twenty to 
forty acres. 
