February 20. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
405 
of quantities, drawn up by Mr. Keeling, is derived, we believe, 
from the Custom House returns :— 
Fruit. 
Apples 
Pears . 
Cherries 
Grapes . 
Pine-apples 
Oranges 
Lemons 
Spaidsh nuts) 
Barcelona j 
Brazil . 
Chesnuts 
Walnuts 
Cocoa-nuts . 
Nuts. 
39,501 bushels. 
19,742 „ 
204,240 lbs. 
1,328,190 „ 
200,000 
61,635,146 
15,408,789 
72,509 bushels. 
11,700 
20,250 
30,088 
1,255,000 
Of the amount of bread consumed in London we have no 
specific information, but there are data which enable us to 
approximate to the truth. Porter, in his “ Progress of the 
Nation," gives us the returns of eight schools, families and 
institutions, containing 1902 men, women, and children, 
each of whom ate on the average 331 l-l(ith lbs. of bread 
per annum. Now if we multiply this quantity by the 
number of the inhabitants of the metropolis—2,500,000 or 
thereabouts—we have a total of 413,760,000 half-quartern 
loaves of 2lbs. weight each. The flour used in puddings, 
pies, (fee., we throw in as a kind of offset against the Loudon 
babies under one year old. Some of this bread is a contri¬ 
bution from the country, and one Railway—the Eastern 
Counties—brought last year 237 tons 12 cwts. to town.— 
Quarterly Review. 
HERB GARDENS. 
The streets, houses, cabs, omnibuses, noise, dirt, heat, 
crowd, bustle, are unquestionably travelling out farther and 
farther from the centre of the metropolis, rendering it very 
problematical at what particular point wc can he said to 
reach the open country. This is now such an oft-told tale, 
that we need not stop to mourn over it. One curious result ! 
is, that the regions whence vegetable supplies for the London 
market are in large part obtained, are gradually driven to a 
distance from us. We all know about the market gardens 
of Fulham, Earl's Court, and other places west and south of 
the metropolis; and a glance at a map shows that new 
streets and squares are approaching dangerously close to 
those gardens; giving warning of the day, probably not 
Very far distant, when growing cabbages and lettuces must, 
figuratively speaking, walk off to a greater distance. 
There are some peculiar gardens which, having not yet 
begun to bo disturbed by bricks and mortar, still continue to 
supply London in as quiet a way as heretofore. Among 
these are the Herb Gardens at Mitcham. For more than a 
hundred years past, many of the culinary, medicinal, and 
perfumery herbs have been specially grown at Mitcham, in 
Surrey, for the London markets: we do not mean exactly 
Covent Garden Market, but the warehouses of the wholesale 
druggists. There are hundreds of acres thus appropriated, 
by herb-growers who devote their whole time and attention 
to this particular kind of culture. 
When wo consider that various kinds of herbs require 
different kinds of soil for their efficient growth, it can hardly 
be supposed that any one spot will rank high above the whole 
of them It is probable that the neighbourhood of Mitcham 
possesses a soil which, although not especially fine for any 
one purpose, is of a good average quality for herbs generally. 
It is, of course,not in Mitcham itself that these gardens are 
located; for Mitcham is a quiet village, with a few quiet 
natives of the old school, and some quaint quiet residences 
belonging to quiet city men, who go quietly up by omnibus 
to town every morning. But, taking Mitcham as a centre, 
there are Tooting ftn one side, Streatham on another, Croy 
don on another, Beddington, Carshalton, Sutton, Mordon, 
and Merton on others; and between these several villages 
and Mitcham there is still an abundant area of open land 
available for any crops to which the soil may be suitable. 
Around these places a keen eye can readily detect the farms 
or gardens of those who look to London for a market, not 
always for medicinal and perfumery herbs, but sometimes for 
culinary vegetables. The scene is not brilliant, or gaudy, or 
highly coloured : for the most useful plants are not often 
the most showy ; and here everything is essentially useful. 
Nevertheless, a herb-garden is a beautiful object; for it 
always contains a few brightly-flowering plants; and who can 
forget the pleasant world of herbs and simples among 
which many of our old writers lived and thought? 
Dear old Gerarde. It is pleasant to look into your 
Herbal, and to appreciate your undoubted faith in the 
truth of all that you assert. We prefer you in the old 
dress of fifteen hundred and ninety-seven, before editors 
and annotators had “improved” you, We like yourengraved 
title page, with the trimly set-out garden, the beds of flowers 
and shrubs, the gardeners digging and watering, the lady 
and gentleman promenading in the costume of Elizabeth’s 
reign, and eupids watering the fruit-trees. We like the 
hearty earnestness of your dedicatory address to Sir William 
Cecil. There is no mere fine language here:—“If delight 
may provoke men’s labour, what greater delight is there than 
to behold the earth apparelled with plants, as with a robe of 
embroidered work, set with orient pearls, and garnished with 
great diversity of rare and costly jewels ? If this variety 
and perfection of colours may affect the eye, it is such in 
herbs and flowers that no Apelles, no Zeuxis ever could by 
any art express the like: if odours, or if taste may work 
satisfaction, they are both sovereign in plants, and so com¬ 
fortable, that no confection of the apothecaries can equal 
their excellent virtue. But these delights are in the outward 
senses; the principal delight is in the mind, singularly 
enriched with the knowledge of these visible things, setting 
forth to us the invisible wisdom and admirable workmanship 
of Almighty God.” 
Gerarde treats of all plants under three heads. The first 
comprises grasses, rushes, com, flags, and bulbous-rooted 
plants; the second includes all sorts of herbs for cooking, 
medicine, and sweet-smelling use; while the third is made 
up in a miscellaneous manner, of trees, shrubs, bushes, fruit 
bearing plants, rosins, gums, roses, heath, mosses, mush¬ 
rooms, and coral , which last is placed in strange company. 
Gerarde’s second class—the herbs for cooking, medicine, 
and sweet-smelling use, arc those that are chiefly cultivated 
by the Mitcham herb growers; lavender, chamomile, liquorice, 
mint, peppermint, belladonna, poppy, wormwood, aniseed, 
horehound ; plants from which druggists obtain spirits and 
oils, and perfumers obtain scents, and tavern-keepers obtain 
liqueurs. 
The year is accurately portioned out at these gardens : 
the different crops being made to fit in one after another 
with exact regularity. There is one magnate grower who 
has four or five hundred acres of land appropriated to various 
plants; and from the system adopted, not only is the gross 
produce large and valuable, but the number of different 
plants is very considerable. One plant requires a whole 
year to arrive at perfection, while another will yield its 
marketable produce in a few months; one is cultivated for 
the sake of its flowers, another for its leaves, a third for its 
seeds, a fourth for its stem, a fifth for its root. On all these 
accounts, the herb-grower studies closely the characteristics 
of each plant, and so parcels out his ground that there shall 
be no idleness. The days of fallow have passed away. As 
some philosophers declare that change of employment is 
the best rest for mind and body during all working hours, 
so do cultivators insist that absolute rest to a field is ab¬ 
solute nonsense: the field, they say, is never tired of 
growing crops; it is only tired of growing one particular 
crop. Hodge, the ploughboy, of blessed memory, when 
asked to mention the most luxurious enjoyment which his 
heart could conceive, declared that swinging upon a five- 
barred gate and knawing a ham-bone the while, would be 
his crowning felicity. Yet Hodge would have liked an 
occasional change even from this ecstacy. The same with 
land. Each crop exerts a particular and peculiar action 
upon the soil, and often renders it better fitted than ever 
for some other particular crop. 
The ground of the market-gardens within a few miles of 
London is tilled and manured to the very highest degree, 
more being spent upon an acre than on any other garden- 
