428 
Market- Gardening. 
forms here a desirable locus statio for many kinds of vegetables, 
though not for corn. Magnificent crops of common and red 
cabbage, 'parsnips, and long red mangold, are growing on a 
surface that is only just out of the water at any period of the 
year. Water oozes into the furrows, where deep ones are drav/n 
here and there ; it fills the intersecting ditches and the main 
sewers. Water, almost stagnant, and covered at this warm 
season with a thick green scum of vegetation, bounds and pro- 
tects the fields ; and during the whole period of the growth of 
the crops it fills the subsoil at less than 24 inches from the 
surface. But the upper layer of this mud-bed is almost always 
dry, crumbling after a few hours of sun or wind into a soft, 
black earth, which may be lifted in handfuls that leave no stain 
of dirt. 
The marsh land was converted from pasture by ploughing- 
15 years ago, and, after a succession of such crops as I have 
named, with onions and potatoes, it is still so strong as to 
require but little manure, which in the case of parsnips might 
induce canker at the crown, and in the case of onions might 
possibly bring on an affection called " booting," a term ex- 
pressing the situation of young onions when they slink away, or, 
so to speak, " sink down into their boots." Onions are liable to 
be overcome in this way when sown too frequently in the same 
field, or on a cold, stiff, unsuitable soil, or in an ungenial 
situation. The more artificial the treatment the nearer the 
disease, and the cultivation of onions is certainly artificial when 
they receive 50 tons of manure per aci-e ; young onions, how- 
ever, in the condition described, seem to suffer from want of 
vitality rather than from any specific disease. The size of the 
fields on the farm, generally large, varies from 60 acres to 
4 acres. The elm is the native tree. The situation of the farm 
is anything but rural ; and its surroundings, especially on the 
river side, are incongruous with agricultural operations, if not 
forbidding in their aspect. There are in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood enormous gasworks, jute-factories, docks, an arsenal, 
a forest of ships' masts, and acres covered with tall chimneys, 
and, besides the noise of great industries and a large population 
all around, there is the roar of constant artillery practice at 
Plumstead Marsh. 
The average of rent, tithe rent-charge, rates, and taxes is, 
together, 5Z. 15s. an acre, rates being about 18s. to 21s. an acre 
in the several parishes, and tithes 14s. an acre. 
The number of farm horses averages about 50, varying from 
. 47 to 52. 
The yearly expenditure in manual labour is nearly 5000?., or 
about 9/. an acre. 
