SUBURBAN FRUIT-GROWING. 
335 
Fruit-growing in the suburbs of London is no new tiling. 
From time immemorial market gardeners have grown their fruit 
and vegetables, and taken them to market, bringing back in 
their carts and vans manure obtained at a cheap rate in the 
town. The distances to be covered fifty years ago were com¬ 
paratively small, and growers made a pleasant and comfortable 
living by the cultivation and sale of Grapes, Plums, Apples, and 
bush fruit, in addition to vegetables, all of which brought good 
prices. The land was not over-drained, and in some cases it 
was marshy and waterlogged. Ponds and ditches were in 
many instances the sources of their water supply for horti¬ 
cultural purposes; but in those days we did not suffer so much 
in dry weather from lack of moisture as we do now that there is 
no reserve stored up in the subsoil. 
The main drainage of London, though necessary from a 
sanitary point of view, has greatly lessened the fertility of the 
soil. In the first place, it has carried to the sea incalculable 
wealth in the shape of organic matter, which was formerly 
available for the fertilisation of the land. Houses were then 
drained into cesspools ; the night-waggon was a familiar institu¬ 
tion in the town; hardy farm labourers cheerfully engaged in 
the most offensive tasks for the sake of a little addition to their 
wages and privileges ; and Mother Earth, the great deodoriser, 
received back her due. But now she is robbed and starved or 
cheated with stable litter, which differs greatly from the old 
farmyard manure; or she is insufficiently fed with artificial 
manures, some of which are of but little value. 
In the second place, the main drainage of London has inter¬ 
cepted all the springs and rivulets which previously found their way 
from the beautiful hills which surround London to the valley of 
the Thames, and the blessed raindrops which Heaven distils are 
bound by Act of Parliament to hurry from the roofs of palaces 
and cottages alike through the same foul pipes which carry the 
diluted sewage to the sea. It is within my knowledge and 
recollection that the eminent engineer Robert Stevenson the 
younger and others, who professionally approved the main 
draining scheme, regarded it as a necessary first step which 
would eventually have to be followed by a system of separation. 
This is hot a cheerful prospect for the ratepayer, but the 
question will have to be faced, as Nature Will inevitably call-the 
