128 Home Produce , Imports , Consumption, and 
the Returns, the area under market gardening in Great Britain 
has been about twice as great during the last five as during the 
first five of the last twenty years ; and the rate of increase has 
been the greater during the last few years. Still, our imports of 
fruit and vegetables have also increased ; and there is little hope 
that we can effectively compete with the countries from which 
we derive large supplies of certain fruits, and of early vegetables, 
which command the highest prices. 
Although, therefore, there is evidence of some increase in 
the home production of the various smaller articles, and further 
extension seems both probable and promising, yet there can be 
no hope that the home production of these articles can be so raised 
as to meet the requirement of our present, to say nothing of an 
increasing, population. 
But, in an article in the Nineteenth Century of December 1892, 
Mr. Jesse Collings, M.P., calls attention to the fact that, leaving 
corn and cattle out of the question, we in 1891 imported other 
articles of agricultural produce to the value of more than 
38.000. 000?. The articles he enumerates are — cheese, butter, 
margarine, lard, poultry, game and rabbits, bacon and hams, 
pork — fresh and salted, potatoes, eggs, and apples ; and he asks — 
“ Why cannot the farming industry supply our home market — 
the best of all markets — with sufficient quantities of the articles 
named ? ” He says the question arises : “ Why should an in- 
dustry be subject to continual depression which has such a vast 
amount of trade offered at its very doors ? What would be said 
of a body of manufacturers who had available men and material, 
but who, through failing to adapt their productions to the 
demand, allowed half the orders offered them to go to foreign 
countries, and who nevertheless complained of depression in 
trade ? ” He adds — “ The matter is one of national importance, 
as affecting the trade of the country, and it is time for the shop- 
keeper, the manufacturer, and the commercial classes generally 
to take it up.” And again he says — “ If a few thousand pounds’ 
worth of steam-engines or iron girders are imported from 
Belgium, the Chambers of Commerce and the commercial press 
are alive to the dangers therefrom to British manufacturers, but 
no anxiety at all is shown at the steady increase in our imports, 
say, of cheese, which in 1891 amounted in value to nearly 
5.000. 000?. sterling. Surely this country is as fitted to produce 
cheese as it is to manufacture steam-engines and girders ! ” 
Now it so happens that in the very same number of the 
Trade and Navigation Returns, which gives the list of articles of 
agricultural produce imported in 1891, to the value of more than 
38.000. 000?., we find that — under the head of “ Manufactured 
