Market- Gardening. 
425 
each year. About one-half of the clung is purchased at 3.y. or 
3.1. ^3(1. a ton, and is drawn from London in the empty waggons ; 
the remainder is bouglit at 55. per ton, at the railway station or 
the quay. Some other manures, including the spent hops from 
an adjoining brewery, are also brought on this farm, 
Tlie live stock consists of a couple of milch cows, and 40 or 50 
pigs during the winter. 
The labour bill, including beer, is 1500/., or 10/. an acre. At 
the time of my first visit — June 17th — the number of labourers 
employed, including ten women, a wheelwright, and a salesman, 
was 35, and their wages amounted to 30/. a week. During the 
winter five women are employed preparing goods for market, 
bunching leeks, pulling and bunching greens, putting up 
onions, &.c. 
The implements of the farm, besides carts and market waggons, 
consist of common ploughs, a double-breasted or ridging-plough 
for moulding potatoes, beans, and peas, and some hand-drills, 
A small patent tool, which resembles a Dutch hoe put on wheels, 
must be mentioned, because its use shows the mechanical effects 
of dung and good farming in making the surface friable. It is 
not uncommon for a man to push this little implement over two 
acres in a day, cutting up all the weeds between the wide rows 
of the garden crops. 
A willow-bed supplies bunching rods for tying the bunches of 
onions, greens, &c. The plants are set at 2 feet by 18 inches, 
and the bed lasts twelve years. Osiers of coarser habit are grown 
to make baskets for vegetables and fruit. I may note that the 
cost of the baskets (with a few sacks) used on the farm exceeds 
50/. a year. 
Parsnips are one of the main crops which are successfully 
grown on this farm. The chief points to observe in their culti- 
vation are — 1st. To sow on land that is least liable to wire- 
worms and the small creatures — probably slugs — which are said 
to be invisible to the eye, and which soon make the parsnips so, 
by eating the young plants as fast as they appear ; the remedy 
for slugs is soot, and the prevention is, sowing on land that is not 
liable to be infested. 2nd, To take precautions against having 
lorked parsnips, and to grow them of a fine, tapering, marketable 
shape by breaking the land well up and applying the manure to 
the previous crop. It is not perfect management to sow after 
corn, because the land is not then in sufficient heart and tillage ; 
or after clover and grasses, on account of the danger of wire-woims 
and canker ; or after potatoes, because potato-ground ought to 
yield a crop of greens after the potatoes are off, instead of lying 
idle till parsnips are sown. They generally follow late cabbages 
or savoj s, which are cleared respectively in November and from 
VOL. VII.— S. S, 2 F 
