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THE GARDENING WORLD. 
July 16, 1887. 
MARKET GARDENING. 
Complaints are heard on all sides both from the 
market gardener and the consumer, but little is said 
of the middle man, into whose pocket is going the 
bulk of the profits to be made upon vegetable products. 
The market gardener is unable at the present time to 
realise sufficient for his crops to pay the labour of 
picking and sending to the market ; whilst, on the 
other hand, the consumer is paying his greengrocer a 
high price for his goods, and if a suggestion is made to 
him that the goods are dear, the honest tradesman is 
offended, and retorts with some such remark as that 
it is impossible to get a living at the price he has to 
sell his wares, or that the particular class of goods 
complained of are scarce. Here is an example of the 
very meagre living obtained by the middle man. Only 
a few days since good summer Cabbages were sold in 
the London market at &d. per tally (sixty), whilst a 
greengrocer, within a quarter of a mile of the market 
gardens where the Cabbages were grown, was charging 
his customers 2 d. and 2\d. each. 
This is only one instance of the profit of the middle 
man at the expense of both the producer and the 
consumer ; and it is not an isolated case, for all green 
crops have this spring been sold at ridiculously low 
prices, so low, indeed, that the producer has been 
getting about one-tenth of the price paid by the consu¬ 
mer as his share of the profits, whilst the middle man 
is scarcely content with the other nine-tenths. Within 
the last few weeks some of the lowest prices realised in 
the London markets have been: Lettuces, 3d. per 
score (twenty-two) ; Greens, 3d. per dozen bunches ; 
Radishes, 6d. per dozen bunches ; and Spinach, one 
day, was actually sold as low as 1 \d. per bushel, 
and other days the market gardener has had to take 
scores of bushels of Spinach home again to turn it on 
to the manure heap, for it would not even fetch l^<f. a 
bushel. A bushel of Spinach will weigh about 25 lbs., 
but I very much doubt if the consumer reaped the 
benefit of these low prices, or was able to purchase this 
Spinach under f d. to a Id. a pound. 
The prices I have quoted will seem almost incredible 
to those of your readers who are unacquainted with the 
practical part of market gardening; but I am in a 
position to prove the correctness of the figures. One 
thing is certain, that unless the middle man will be 
content with a fair share of the profits, and allow the 
producer sufficient for his goods to pay him to grow 
them, there will shortly be thousands of acres of land 
lying idle which are now cultivated by market gar¬ 
deners, and, as a result, green produce will be really 
scarce, and the consumer, who does not get the benefit 
of a glut in the market, will have to pay a higher price 
for his vegetables than he does now. 
The market gardener is an intelligent, hard-working, 
industrious man. It is not necessary to qualify that 
remark by saying that some of them are, because unless 
a man has all these good qualities he never becomes a 
market gardener. His business is not learned in a 
season, or even two ; but it must be actually born 
in him—he must be brought up to his trade from 
infancy. Yet no man, however clever he may be, will 
succeed if goods do not realise sufficient to pay for 
labour. 
The producer of green crops seldom has a speciality. 
Unless he possesses a lot of glass, he has to grow a 
mixed crop in order to work his ground to the best 
advantage by keeping it always occupied. In addition 
to the bad prices his crops have realised, the producer 
has this season another difficulty to contend with. 
The drought we have had is literally crippling the 
market gardener ; acres of land have for weeks been 
lying idle ; plants—such as Cauliflowers, Cabbage, 
Savoys, Brussels Sprouts, &c.—which should have been 
planted long since, are still in the seed-beds, and to 
improve matters, are at the present time being devoured 
by caterpillars ; so that not only is the market gardener 
losing money by reason of the low price his goods are 
realising at the present time, but his prospects of 
recouping these losses from the autumn crops is very 
remote. 
The outcome of the season’s misfortunes for the 
producer must be that it will only fall to the lot of the 
men with large capitals to stand against it. The small 
men, who cannot put their hands upon a substantial 
reserve fund, must give up cultivation ; but the 
middle men will continue to flourish, whatever the 
price of vegetables may be.— Practical. 
GAILLARDIAS. 
Considerable attention has been given to this class 
of plants recently, and the number of varieties now 
obtainable is very great. This is not to be wondered 
at considering their noble and telling appearance, 
whether used for ordinary garden decoration, or as cut 
flowers for table work where their bold and striking 
colours have gained for them the approbation of not a 
few. They also last well in a cut state, an additional 
recommendation not to be overlooked amidst the 
numerous large gaily coloured things that are so 
perishable, and cau only be depended on for a day or 
two at most. The range of colour certainly is not 
extensive at present, seeing that we can only boast of 
yellow in various shades, chestnut-brown, orange, 
crimson and red in varying tints. Generally there are 
two or more of these shades in one flower head, 
although we have already obtained a self-coloured 
yellow, and may expect, sooner or later (if improve¬ 
ments continue to be effected as they have been within 
the last few years), a race of self-coloured flowers in 
the various colours above mentioned. The object of 
this would merely be to increase the variety of select 
kinds, as we have in the parti-coloured flowers a race 
of great beauty, such as we rarely find in the great 
family of Composites. 
Besides the single-flowered forms there are now 
numerous so-called doubles and semi-doubles of the 
Gaillardia Lokenziana. 
Lorenziana type, not more attractive or handsome, 
it is true, than the singles, but which find their 
admirers. Owing to the predisposition of Gaillardias 
to sport from seed, it was long ago predicted that 
we should ultimately be able to obtain double forms. 
This has been accomplished in the forms coming 
under Lorenziana, which have their florets developed 
with a long tube, and a fine lobed, regular or nearly 
regular lamina. Curiously enough, the semi-double 
forms have several rows of these regular florets, 
forming a ray. In the single varieties the ray is flat 
and formed of broad wedge-shaped three-lobed florets, 
whose lower part is generally highly - coloured, 
often similar to the disk, and tipped with yellow to a 
greater or less extent, forming a marginal band, and 
imparting additional effect and liveliness to the whole 
flower-head. 
Gaillardias are sufficiently hardy to be classed as such, 
but they often prove somewhat short-lived. This is 
the less to be regretted, seeing how easily they are 
propagated from cuttings or seeds. The latter is the 
most popular method of raising them, entailing the least 
labour, and affording a ready means of obtaining new 
varieties. They also flower most profusely, and form 
better plants when so raised. They should be sown 
about August or September in pans or boxes, pricked 
out when sufficiently large to handle, in cold frames, 
and planted out in spring where they are to flower. 
Several species are concerned in the production of 
the numerous fine flowers in cultivation ; but Grandi- 
flora and Grandiflora maxima are products of G. aristata. 
The variety Maxima has flower-heads about 3£ ins. to 
4 ins. in diameter, and is of a deep reddish crimson 
with a yellow margin. Boreas, Juno, and Apollo are 
also very distinct and handsome forms, for the illus¬ 
tration of which we are indebted to Messrs. Carter & 
Co. Apollo is a large deep maroon flower, with a 
golden yellow margin. Boreas is crimson, with more 
than half the length of the ray-florets of a golden 
yellow. Juno, on the other hand, has the whole of the 
ray of a self-coloured brilliant yellow. Other fine and 
distinct varieties issued by the same firm are Ceres, 
golden yellow with a bronze margin ; Helicon, bright 
yellow ; Minerva, golden yellow with a narrow red 
ring around the central disk ; Olympus, crimson with 
the ray-florets tipped with gold; Orpheus, a crimson 
and golden yellow quilled form ; and St. Blaise, a 
distinct blood-red variety, having the ray-florets tipped 
with yellow. 
-- 
FANCY PANSIES. 
A FEW days ago a box of blooms of beautiful fancy 
Pansies reached me from Mr. John Forbes, nursery¬ 
man, of Hawick, N.B. Mr. Forbes is not only a 
grower of Pansies in a large way, but he is a raiser 
also ; and among the blooms sent me are some new 
ones of the last year or two, and they are so good that 
they seem to me to maintain the high character of the 
flowers the raisers in Scotland have obtained for us 
during the past few years. I am persuaded that the 
flowers raised by growers in the United Kingdom are 
in decided advance upon the very best that can come 
to us from the Continent. They are of stouter build 
and finer texture ; the colours are well distributed, rich 
and bold in some, soft and delicate in others, and 
better suited for our English climate than those ob¬ 
tained from abroad. I would strongly advise anyone 
having a penchant for these beautiful fancy Pansies to 
obtain a select few. Grow them well, save seed, and 
raise seedlings from them, and by so doing they will 
perpetuate a strain of a high order of merit. 
In sending the flowers, Mr. Forbes stated they were 
“ not so large in size as they might be, as the weather 
was very hot and dry at the time they were gathered, 
and had been so for the space of seven weeks. The 
plants were suffering very much, and the flowers 
opening smaller every day ” ; yet I thought them very 
fine indeed, and I could only imagine what they would 
have been had the weather been moist and cool. 
The new varieties of the present year, sent out by 
Mr. Forbes, were Arab, Distinction, James Thomson, 
Jessie Forbes, John Davidson and Robert Campbell; all 
these I unquestionably pronounce first-class. I have 
not given descriptions of these because they are fully 
described in Mr. Forbes’ catalogue. Other new varieties 
of this year were David Christie, Display, John Young, 
Meteor and R. G. Head; these were not in good form, 
and probably the weather had materially affected their 
character. The new flowers of 1S86 were Alexander 
McKinnon, George Innes, Joe Chamberlain, Lizzie 
Allardyce, Laurence McCormick, Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. 
Johnstone and Mrs. C. Russell, all fine and striking 
varieties. Of those forming the general collection the 
following were particularly fine: —A. McMillan, Donald 
Sinclair, Earl of Beaeonsfield, Edward Caird, Evelyn 
Bruce, General Grant, James Gardiner, John Thomson, 
John Sutherland, a grand crimson self; May Tate, 
extra fine ; Miss Bliss, Mrs. E. H. Wood, Mrs. Duncan, 
extra fine ; Mrs. Sutherland, extra fine; Pilrig Per¬ 
fection, Princess Beatrice and William Dean.—A. D. 
-- 
CONCERNING RHUBARB. 
Ever since my paper under the above heading was 
published in the Gardening World of May 2Sth, I 
have been intending to supplement it by a note or two. 
The hot weather and the Jubilee must be my excuse 
for not having done so before. I think I ought to have 
emphasised rather more than I did—the point of view 
from which the paper was written. It was written 
from a strictly private establishment point of view ; 
that is to say, the needs and supply of the private 
establishment, by the gardeners of that establishment, 
was the first and last consideration I had in my mind. 
Commercial growers then would have read it with 
caution ; if any did, I have no doubt that they drew 
their own and rightful conclusions about it. At the 
same time, I have thought it necessary to bring the 
matter up again in order to accentuate the fact that 
