408 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 22. 
I grower who brings them to market. If they labour for the j 
i salesman, a portion is at once conveyed to his premises; if 
! for the grower, a portion is placed on his pitching stand for 
I the examination of purchasers. As the bargaining proceeds, 
i porters look eagerly on, offering their services. When a 
j bargain is struck, the porter is employed to carry the 
I hamper on his knot to the customer’s vehicle (the coster- 
; mongers, however, except in a hurry, are usually their own 
porters after a purchase), and as a porter proceeds rapidly 
along, trotting or half running, and never walking, he calls 
out the name of his employer as he reaches the street to 
which he has been directed, and is answered by the man 
in charge of the vehicle. He then delivers his burden, and 
trots back again to the market. All this is accomplished 
with far less noise and less jostle than a person who has not 
witnessed it would imagine. In the interior of the market, 
alike in fruit and vegetables, the same scene is witnessed, 
but as no carriages can be admitted there, the “ lots ” are 
j all displayed on the ground. Every passing stranger is 
I invited to buy. In one, two, or three hours, according to 
the supply and the demand, business slackens, the streets 
! show but a straggling of market carts, and many of the 
salesmen and women, or rather their assistants, may be 
seen taking their breakfasts out of large white or yellow 
mugs, with a flank of bread and butter at hand. On my 
visits I did not see one breakfaster eat a watercress, though 
two or three tons weight of that “ cheap and wholesome 
salad from the brook” might be in the market. Under the 
piazza, the labourers surround the many coffee stands 
drinking the beverage out of mugs, and biting huge bits 
from slices of very thick bread and butter. Women, with 
sheeps’ trotters are standing by, soliciting the coffee-stall 
customers to “ pick a bit ” with their meal, or to do so at 
the public-house with their beer. On my visits the public- 
houses were little thronged. Business goes on still, but the 
crowds that stream along the intersecting passages of the 
market are straggling instead of being so dense and 
continuous that they can hardly be broken by the crowd 
wanting to proceed at right angles, aud that crowd, when 
“ a break ” has been effected, pours along as densely and as 
continuously, and has to be broken in its turn. In no 
crowded place that I have visited was there less disorder, less 
noise, and less wrangling. A few Irishwomen (porteresses) 
may quarrel in their native Erse, but the others regard 
that as a thing without meaning, and not worth attention. 
The early customers in this market are the costermongers, 
who buy singly or conjointly in large quantities (and who 
are quite as readily attended to as the West-end fruiterers 
! or greengrocers, if not more readily, as the costermongers 
are ready-money men), the fruiterers and greengrocers. 
Then as the day advances come housekeepers, cooks, and 
private individuals; and orders are packed up for the 
country. Lastly come the wealthy, who cater for their own 
desserts of grapes, filberts, or pine apples, or who love to 
purchase the vegetable dainties suited to their tastes. 
The system of business is varied. Salesmen receive goods 
consigned to them direct, all charges of carriage by railway 
or from the railway station being defrayed by the arrange¬ 
ment of the consigner, and the salesman’s commission is 
5 per cent., the goods being brought to his door without any 
trouble to him. Growers bring their own produce to market, 
sell it themselves, and return to their suburban places, while 
others are at once salesmen, growers, and dealers. These 
classes are pretty equally divided, but the salesmen are the 
most numerous. 
The labourers connected with Covent-garden market are 
male and female ticket-porters. No unticketed porter is 
allowed to ply for hire in the market, or to carry out goods 
from it, under penalties, but any person may carry goods 
made his own by purchase, as in the case of coster- 
! mongers. The porter’s ticket costs Is. 6d., and as vacancies 
occur they are filled up by appointment from the super¬ 
in ten dan t. There are 600 male and 80 female porters. In a 
slack time the male porters “look out” for work at the docks, 
or elsewhere. One-tenth of the men are English, the others 
are all Irish. There were, until two or three years back, a 
few Welshmen and a few Scotchmen, but there are none now. 
The usual charge for porterage is Id. “ a turn,” or load, but 
some will work for id. a turn, to the great anger and disgust 
of the penny hands. An Irish porter, a keen-looking and 
tolerably well-dressed man, whom I met in the market, and 
to whom I had been referred, gave me the following state¬ 
ment:— 
“Sure then, sir, it’s not what it was the porthering. There's 
so many paupers in it, and they’ll slave for a halfpenny a 
turn. They’ve come over, so many of ’em from my country 
—bad luck to them—that there’s lots ready to work for id. 
instead of Id. in the market, and they’re slinking outside for 
jobs. I’ve never missed a morning in this market, barring 
the blessed days, since I came to London, just the year after ; 
the altering the market. I’d just married in Ireland, and 
we came over to try our luck in London, and I soon got on 
here. Its the thruth I’ll tell you, sir. I make from 12s. to 
15s. a week, from the blessed Aister Saturday to the beginning 
of November, and 10s. a week taking the average, the rest o’ i 
the year. Things aint better nor worse with me. I’d airn 
more once and I live chaper now. It’s my counthrymen i 
that’s the ruin of me.” 
An old woman, whom I had some talk with, considered 
the improvement of the market the ruin of “ porthering, for 
when it was less 'vanient more porthers was wanted, and 
now there wasn’t that call for them, worse luck.” She 
earned less, she said, since the improvement, or since five or 
six years after it, by one-tliird, making 5s. instead of 7s. 6d. 
(To be continued.) 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Coke Stove (T. K. The fumes of this, if given off in a grcen- 
I house, or other confined place, would he injurious to plants. It causes 
, an excess of carbonic acid, and of some sulphurous-acid in the air, both 
of which are detrimental 
Bees (Ibid). —Your Bees, alive in March, but now all gone except a 
few dead in the hive, were starved to death. They die out-of-doors, 
whilst in search of food, more frequently than in the hive. You should 
have fed them in early spring. 
Flower Garden (A Young Gardener). —We believe Mr. Beaton 
arranges gardens if remunerated for so doing. His direction is “Sur¬ 
biton, near Kingston-on-Thames.” The notes on Ferns will not be pub¬ 
lished in a separate form. 
Flower-Garden Plan (J. It/. E. (?.).—Your plan is very good 
indeed, and so is all the planting, except the four outside corners, 18 and 
19 doubled crossways. Neutral beds so large, and on the outside, dimi¬ 
nish the real size of any garden so planted; pink, purple, scarlet, or 
yellow, ought certainly to be in these beds, then the circles in the bosom 
of these angle beds would need to be white. No. 1 may be a fountain, a 
. sun dial, or, with Heliotropes, or Mangle’s variegated Geranium. You 
1 did not say what is in the two beds marked 4 ; something light—white, 
grey, or lilac, ought to be in them. The rest are in very good taste 
indeed. The plan will be engraved. 
Cucumbers (J. Reynolds).— The variable temperature of spring, and 
excessive wet, caused the plants to decay at the collar. Hand-glasses 
are always best kept over the centre of the plants during such seasons. 
Irish Moss. —Have any of our readers had experience in using this 
as a food for animals ? A correspondent at Abergele writes thus on the 
subject:—“ I am surprised no mention has been made of what I call a 
very valuable addition to food for animals, viz., ‘ The Irish Moss.’ It is 
cheap, and gets the animals on better than any grain, particularly to 
sows with pigs. It ought to be more generally known.” 
Fete Noir ( Aighurth ).—This is the name, and not Tete Noir, under 
which the Pelargonium was exhibited. At least, so say our reporter and 
others. 
Floating Water Meadows (R. C. Court ).—Our correspondent 
requires a work on this subject, including directions for making flood-' 
gates, hatches, &c. Do any of our readers know of such a publication ? 
Dioscaria Japonica. — Verax wishes to know if this edible root, sent 
from China to the Paris Museum of Natural History, in 1852, can be 
procured in England ? We do not know M. Carlo Minesi’s direction. 
Preserving Butterflies (W. S .).—Kill them in a wide-mouthed 
glass bottle half filled with well-bruised Laurel leaves, display them on 
a piece of flat cork, binding their wings open upon it by thread, a 
groove must be cut in the cork to admit the body, and a pin through the 
thorax must fasten it in its place. When quite dry, keep them in a 
shallow drawer, having a glazed lid, and fasten camphor in a bag into 
the drawer to exclude insects. 
Names of Plants (S. J.). —No. 1, Sollya beterophylla, a very desir¬ 
able hardy conservatory or greenhouse plant; indeed, almost hardy 
enough to live out under a south wall. 2. Campanula fragilis, a plant 
that should have a place in every greenhouse or conservatory ; which 
may either hang down over the pot, as in your case, or be trained upon a 
wire trellis. ( T. M. IF.). — Siphocampylos bicolor. (A.). —Of all your 
Pelargoniums and Fuchsias, we can only make out the following Your 
whole list is but second rate; 1. Garth’s Perfection. 3. Purity. 4. One 
in the Ring. 6. Bianca. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, Winchester High-street, 
in the Parish of Saint Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, of Church Hill, Walthamstow, in the County of 
Essex, at the Office, No. 2, Amen Corner, in the Parish of Christ¬ 
church, City of London.—August 22nd, 1854. 
