Jan. 17th, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
307 
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”—B acon. 
C|f dirkmitg Wtdfr. 
BATHED AY, JANUARY 17 m, 1885. 
Maeket-Gaedening. —Farmers may grumble 
and growl about the troubles wliicli beset them 
and the difficulties they have to contend with 
arising from weather and competition, but they 
are not the only workers of the soil or tillers of 
the land who find in their vocation much that is 
precarious. Market-Gardening is a very impor¬ 
tant vocation and one of special interest not only 
to the dwellers in populous places, but also to 
vast numbers who reside near to towns, because 
this form of gardening affords a large amount 
of labour, and for soil tilling the most remune¬ 
rative kind of labour. To the great urban 
populations a regular supply of good wholesome 
vegetables is of the first moment, and myriads of 
persons, in these urban districts, find in the pur¬ 
veying of garden products profitable occupation. 
"What gives food to the townspeople gives labour 
and life to the myriads of workers on the out¬ 
skirts of the towns, and thus the land creates and 
recreates both food and wealth. 
Market-Gardening needs special aptitude and 
training to render it profitable. No man, however 
great his love for gardening, can become a 
successful market grower of vegetables and other 
garden produce in a few weeks. It needs years 
of keen attention to the demands of the market 
and its caprices, and vissicitudes; to the ever- 
increasing element of both home and foreign 
competition; to the best methods of profitably 
and quickly disposing of produce; to the 
obtaining by the best methods of culture of that 
produce; to a correct knowledge of land and of 
its fitness for various crops; to the qualifications 
and capacities of the labourer ; to the securing of 
a constant and ample supply of manure, in fact 
to a thousand things which demand the most 
practical knowledge and a well-trained intelli¬ 
gence. It is very doubtful whether the best 
farmer in the kingdom, if his training is of a 
purely agricultural nature, would make a success¬ 
ful market-gardener except after several years 
hard application and work, for the requirements 
of the two classes of cultivators are so diverse. 
What would the well-to-do gentleman-farmer 
say, for instance, to the discomfort arising from 
going over night at least three times a week and 
at a busy time, perhaps every night but Saturday, 
some ten or twenty miles by rail to town, 
sleeping for six hours, then turning out at four 
o’clock in the morning to meet the waggons 
loaded with garden produce, and stand beside 
these for several hours until all is sold F That 
sort of life would be trying enough in the summer 
months, but in the winter a man needs to be well 
seasoned to stand it. This hard and irregular 
life, however, might be borne for the sake of the 
financial returns, were it not for the extraordinary 
competition which has grown up in all kinds of 
garden produce of late, and which finds its 
great strength on the Continent and in the 
Channel Islands, from which favoured climes come 
to us such enormous quantities of garden pro¬ 
duce of every imaginable kind, that home- 
growers begin to wonder what the end will be. 
It matters not what may be our own produce 
and howsoever good of its kind, the best growers 
find themselves checkmated on every hand, for 
the foreigner is acute and scents with marvellous 
quickness what is most required, or what is 
found to be with us exceptionally good. The 
foreigner seems further to have advantages over 
us of a climatic kind that give him a good start in 
the race. His labour is less costly, his rent little, 
often nil; his rates and taxes much lighter, and 
he is not burthened with tithes. Whilst our 
home growers are thus heavily handicapped 
financially, they too often see the rich promise of 
a season destroyed, as was the case last spring 
when April frosts so terribly nipped the fruit 
blossoms, and robbed the growers of that which 
represented countless thousands of pounds. Such 
trials and difficulties as these necessarily try 
men’s tempers and fairness, and yet nothing is 
more rare than to hear any intelligent market- 
gardener complain of the nature of the competi¬ 
tion to which he is subjected. He is so far in 
advance of the grumbling, growling farmer, who 
is ever calling upon some political Jupiter to help 
him, that he hopes for better seasons and prices, 
and struggles on gamely, working with a will 
being content with meagre profits if he cannot 
get large ones, and is ever pegging away. 
A real man of the world, and in his vocation 
brought into contact with much from which the 
farmer in his more secluded life is debarred, the 
market-gardener holds broad views of trade and 
commerce, and if he regrets that foreign com¬ 
petition cuts the ground from under him in one 
direction, why, lie endeavours to carve out 
another line for himself which may prove more 
profitable. And further, he has the satisfaction 
of knowing that if his returns are moderate, at 
least the great masses of the population are being 
better and more cheaply fed—that, in fact, the 
competition to which he is subjected is, if no sport 
for him, at least full of good for them. How few 
farmers, alas! are there who take such a broad 
and generous view of things as this. 
This little homily has been prompted by a chat 
we had the other day with a market-grower of 
various kinds of garden produce. He cultivates 
some hundred and fifty acres of land, one-half of 
which is laid down with fruit and flowers, and in 
that cultivation he employs just about three times 
as much labour as an average farmer would, pays 
more of rent and rates, owns and works more 
horses, and whose manure bill annually would 
make any farmer of three times this extent of land 
to stare. He was literally born and bred in his 
vocation, and has by dint of the greatest energy 
and devotion to his duties become a man of 
means; yet he is as much of a working man as 
ever, superintending his labourers when not at 
market, and giving to everything the utmost 
personal attention. He told us that trade was bad, 
prices low, competition enormous, and yet he has 
just added eighty acres of land to his previous 
holdings, though like a wise man not on a lease, but 
with two years’ notice to quit. Land tenure is 
just now in a state of transition, and few men like 
to tie their hands with leases. Bents will have 
to be revised, and none can tell what may happen 
during the next few years. 
Our informant tells us that all his former 
ground being covered with trees and flower roots 
—for flowers is a very important factor in Market- 
Gardening—he had been compelled to acquire 
some open land for vegetables, and thus the 
expansion of his holding. The fact is, the man 
who turns his hand to this vocation must not look 
back, and in working up a market connection he 
must have not only ample but regular supplies of 
produce according to the season. A fruit grower 
only during the past year would for one half the 
season have had nothing to take to market, but 
with ample supplies of flowers and vegetables ho 
can keep the market going; and it is better to do 
that, if sometimes the profits are nil, than it is 
to have nothing to send. Of flowers, the most 
profitable are found in Crimson Wallflowers, 
Violets, Polyanthuses, Daisies, Narcissi, Jonquils, 
Stocks, and, indeed, almost anything that will 
bloom early and bunch well. Those who think a 
crop of Cabbages the chief market-garden produce 
are too hopelessly ignorant to be taught better, 
->*-*•- 
The National Chetsanthehum Society.— 
In accordance with the terms of a resolution 
passed at a recent meeting of the general com¬ 
mittee of this Society, regulations have been 
framed under which local or provincial societies 
may become affiliated with the National Chry¬ 
santhemum Society. Under these regulations 
every society paying an annual affiliation fee of 
half-a-guinea will be entitled to the medals of the 
National Society at cost price and to two certifi¬ 
cates annually free of charge. Each affiliated 
society will also have the right to elect one of 
its members to the general committee of the 
National Chrysanthemum Society, and he will 
receive two free tickets of admission to the 
annual exhibition. Each affiliated society will also 
be supplied with an Official Catalogue of Chry¬ 
santhemums free of charge for the use of its 
committee. The medals, in morocco case, will 
be supplied at cost price as follows:—Gold 
Medal, £5 5s.; Silver Medal, 15s. Gd .; Bronze 
Medal, 8s.; but neither the medals nor certifi¬ 
cates must be awarded in any other classes than 
for specimen plants or cut blooms of Chrysan¬ 
themums, and those Chrysanthemums bracketed 
as being synonymous in the National Catalogue 
must not be exhibited in the same stand, or 
disqualification will follow in all classes in which 
the Society’s Medals are offered. Subject to 
these regulations, the committee of an affiliated 
society will be at liberty to offer the medals and 
certificates as they think most advisable; but 
no society will be considered to have become 
affiliated until it has received the sanction of the 
general committee of the National Chrysanthe¬ 
mum Society. 
-- 
Celebies. —We are not meeting with anything 
very novel in the way of Celeries, although the 
American White Plume is said to possess the 
property of requiring no blanching, as it turns 
white as the winter approaches. There is a 
yellow kind, of French introduction, which seems 
to possess a somewhat similar property, but a 
yellow Celery will hardly become popular, unless 
it should be found to have some speciality in 
flavour not found in others. We may well doubt 
the excellence for salading of any kind of Celery 
that has not been blanched in some fashion by 
the exclusion of the air, but still any really good 
kind that would give us as good as can now be 
obtained by blanching, without the necessity for 
such operations, would be a great gain. The 
exclusion of air and light, so far, seems to be 
essential to the blanching of Celery and the 
elimination from it of that element of bitterness 
which it seems difficult to believe can be found 
absent in any kind not blanched. Bed Celeries 
seem to have grown into favour very much during 
the past few years, the most popular being Major 
Clarke’s, Leicester Bed, Sulham Prize, and the 
fine London Market Bed, so largely grown in 
market gardens. What grand sticks this latter 
kind will produce may be seen abundantly in 
Covent Garden Market, or better still where 
grown by acres. The Leicester Bed is a more 
compact kind, but does not make such fine 
sticks. The Old Incomparable Dwarf White, 
sometimes known as Sandringham White, White 
Gem, and by other designations, still remains one 
©f the firmest and most compact of whites, and 
