the large establishments required to fill the milk-jugs of London. There
are at the present moment, as near as we can learn, 20,000 cows in the
metropolitan and suburban dairies, some of which number 500 cows apiece.
Even these gigantic establishments have been occasionally exceeded, and
one individual, several years ago, possessed 1,500 milkers--a fact fatal
to the popular superstition, that notwithstanding many attempts, no
dairyman could ever muster more than 999. The terrible ravages of
pleuro-pneumonia, which many believe to be a contagious disease, have
cured the passion for such extensive herds. The larger dairies of the
metropolis are on the whole admirably managed, and the cows luxuriate in
airy outhouses, but the smaller owners are often confined for space, and
the animals are sometimes cooped in sheds, placed in tiers one above
another. The country dairymaid laughs at the ignorance which the Londoner
betrays of rural matters when on a visit to her master, but she would be
perplexed in her turn if told that in the capital they fed the cows
chiefly upon brewers' grains, and milked them on the _second story_? A
few years since Mr. Rugg appalled the town, which had forgotten Matthew
Bramble, Esq., and the "New Bath Guide," by detailing a nauseous process
which he affirmed was in use among cunning milkmen for the adulteration of
their milk. There was, however, a great deal of exaggeration in the
account, and Dr. Hassell, whose analysis of various articles of food in
the _Lancet_ are widely known, states that the "iron-tailed cow" is the
main agent employed in the fraud, and that the only colouring matter he
has been enabled to discover is annatto. Nearly all the cream goes to the
West-End; and one dairyman living at Islington informed us that he made
1,200_l._ a year by the trade he carried on in that single article with
the fashionable part of the town. It must be evident, upon the least
consideration, that the London and suburban dairies alone could not supply
the metropolis. If each of the 20,000 cows give on the average twelve
quarts a day, the sum total would only be 240,000 quarts. If we suppose
this quantity to be increased by the exhaustless "iron-tailed cow," of
which Dr. Hassell speaks, to 300,000 quarts, the allowance to each
individual of the two millions and a quarter of population would be little
more than a quarter of a pint. This is clearly below the exigencies of the
tea-table, the nursery, and the kitchen, and we do not think we shall make
an overestimate if we assume that half as much again is daily consumed.
Here again the railway, which in some cases brings milk from as far as
eighty miles, makes up the deficiency. The Eastern Counties line conveyed
in 1853 to London, 3,174,179 quarts, the North-Western 144,000 quarts, the
Great Western 23,400 quarts, the Brighton and South Coast 100 tons, and
the Great Northern as much perhaps as the North-Western. The milk is
collected from the farmers by agents in the country, who sell it to the
milkmen, of whom there are 1,347, to distribute it over the town. In
course of time it is possible that town dairies may entirely disappear.
Cowsheds, often narrow and low, in thickly-populated localities, cannot be
as healthy for the animals as a purer atmosphere; and though experiment
has shown that they thrive admirably when stalled, the food they get in
these urban prisons can hardly be as wholesome as that provided by the
verdant pastures of the farm. The milk which comes by railway has,
however, this disadvantage, that it will not keep nearly so long as the
indigenous produce of the metropolitan dairies. The different companies
have constructed waggons lightly hung on springs, but the churning effect
of sudden joltings cannot be altogether got rid of.
Of the vegetables and fruit that are brought into the various markets of
the capital, but especially to Covent Garden, a very large quantity is
grown in the immediate neighbourhood. From whatever quarter the railway
traveller approaches London, he perceives that the cultivation of the land
gradually heightens, until he arrives at those suburban residences which
form the advanced guards of the metropolis. The fields give place to
hedgeless gardens, in which, to use a phrase of Washington Irving, "the
furrows seem finished rather with the pencil than the plough." Acre after
acre flashes with hand-glasses, streaks of verdure are ruled in close
parallel lines across the soil with mathematical precision, interspersed
here and there with patches as sharp cut at the edges as though they were
pieces of green baize--these are the far-famed market-gardens. They are
principally situated in the long level tracts of land that must once have
been overflowed by the Thames--such as the flat alluvial soil known as the
Jerusalem Level, extending between London Bridge and Greenwich--and the
grounds about Fulham, Battersea, Chelsea, Putney, and Brentford. Mr.
Cuthill, who is perhaps the best authority on this subject, estimates that
there are 12,000 acres under cultivation for the supply of vegetables and
5,000 for fruit-trees. This seems an insufficient area for the supply of
so many mouths, but manure and active spade husbandry compensate for lack
of space. By these agencies four and sometimes five crops are extracted
from the land in the course of the year. The old-fashioned farmer,
accustomed to the restrictions of old-fashioned leases, would stare at
such a statement, and ask how long it would last. But his surprise would
be still greater at being told that after every clearance the ground is
deeply trenched, and its powers restored with a load of manure to every
thirty square feet of ground. This is the secret of the splendid return,
and it could be effected nowhere but in the neighbourhood of such cities
as London, where the produce of the fertilizer is sufficiently great to
keep down its price. And here we have a striking example of town and
country reciprocation. The same waggon that in the morning brings a load
of cabbages, is seen returning a few hours later filled with dung. An
exact balance as far as it goes is thus kept up, and the manure, instead
of remaining to fester among human beings, is carted away to make
vegetables. What a pity we cannot extend the system, and turn the whole
sewerage by drain-pipes entirely into the rural districts, to feed the
land, instead of allowing it, as we do, to run into the Thames and pollute
the water to be used in our dwellings.
The care and attention bestowed by the market-gardeners is incredible to
those who have not witnessed it; every inch of ground is taken advantage
of--cultivation runs between the fruit-trees; storming-parties of cabbages
and cauliflowers swarm up to the very trunks of apple-trees;
raspberry-bushes are surrounded and cut off by young seedlings. If you see
an acre of celery growing in ridges, be sure that, on a narrow inspection,
you will find long files of young peas picking their way along the
furrows. Everything flourishes here except weeds, and you may go over a
150-acre piece of ground without discovering a single one. Quality, even
more than quantity, is attended to by the best growers; and they nurse
their plants as they would children. The visitor will sometimes see "the
heads" of an acre of cauliflowers one by one folded up in their own leaves
as carefully as an anxious wife wraps up an asthmatic husband on a
November night; and if rain should fall, attendants run to cover them up,
as quickly as they cover up the zoological specimens at the Crystal Palace
when the watering-pots are set to work.
Insects and blight are also banished as strictly as from the court of
Oberon. To such a pitch is vigilance carried, that, according to a writer
in _Household Words_, blight and fungi are searched after with a
microscope, woodlice exterminated by bantems dressed in socks to prevent
too much scratching, and other destructive insects despatched by the aid
of batches of toads, purchased at the rate of six shillings a dozen!
The continual extension of London is, however, rapidly encroaching upon
all the old market-gardens, and they are obliged to move farther a-field:
thus high cultivation, like a green fairy-ring, is gradually widening and
enlarging its circle round the metropolis. The coarser kinds of vegetables
are but sparingly grown in these valuable grounds, but come up in large
quantities from all parts of the country; and some of the choice kinds are
now reared far away in Devonshire and Cornwall, where they are favoured by
the climate. It would be interesting to get an authentic statement of the
acreage dedicated to fruit and vegetables for the London market, but we
find the information unattainable. Mr. Cuthill calculates that there are
200 acres employed around the metropolis in the growth of strawberries,
and 5 acres planted as mushroom-beds. Cucumbers were once very largely
cultivated. He has seen as many as 14 acres under hand-glasses in a single
domain, and has known 200,000 gherkins cut in a morning for the
pickle-merchants. Strangely enough, they have refused to grow well around
London ever since the outbreak of the potato disease. The disastrous
epidemic of 1849, we have little doubt, had much to do with the diminished
supply, for the cholera soon brought about the result desired by Mrs.
Gamp, "when cowcumbers is three for twopence," prices quite explanatory of
the indisposition of the land to produce them. The very high state of
cultivation in the metropolitan market-gardens necessitates the employment
of a large amount of labour; and it is supposed that no less than 35,000
persons are engaged in the service of filling the vegetable and
dessert-dishes of the metropolis. This estimate leaves out those in the
provinces and on the Continent, which would, we doubt not, nearly double
the calculation, and show a troop of men and women as large as the entire
British army. There are five marts in London devoted to the sale of
fruit--Covent Garden, Spitalfields, the Borough, Farringdon, and
Portman-markets,--besides a vast number of street offsets, such as
Clare-market, in which hawkers generally stand with their barrows. Covent
Garden is not only their type, but it does nearly as much business as all
of them put together, and for that reason we shall dwell upon it to the
exclusion of the others.
At the first dawn of morning in the midst of squalid London, sweet country
odours greet the early-riser, and cool orchards and green strawberry
slopes seem ever present to the mind.
If those who seek pleasure in gaiety have never visited the market in its
prime, let them journey thither some summer morning, and note how fresh
will seem the air, and how full of life the people, after the languid
waltz in Grosvenor Square. The central alley of the "Garden," as it is
called by the costermongers, is one of the prettiest lounges in town; and,
whether by chance or design, it exhibits, in its arrangement from east to
west, a complete march of the seasons. At the western entrance the visitor
is greeted with the breath of flowers; and there they show in smiling
banks piled upon the stalls, or sorted with frilled edges into ladies'
bouquets. As he proceeds, he comes upon the more delicate spring
vegetables--pink shafts of the oriental-looking rhubarb, delicate cos
lettuce, &c.; still further along the arcade, the plate-glass windows on
either side display delicate fruits, done up in dainty boxes, and set off
with tinted paper shreds. Behind these windows also might be seen those
rarities which it is the pride of London market-gardeners to provide, and
in producing which they all struggle to steal the longest march upon
time--a sieve-full of early potatoes, each as small and costly as the egg
of a Cochin-China fowl--a basin-full of peas, at a guinea a pint--a
cucumber marked 5_s._, and strawberries 18_s._ the ounce.
The market-gardeners of Penzance are beginning to send up many of these
early vegetables, the mildness of the south-western extremity of Cornwall
giving them a wonderful advantage over every other part of the kingdom.
Gentlemen's gardeners also contribute somewhat, by sending to the salesmen
such of the produce of their glazed houses as is not consumed in the
family, and receive articles in return of which they happen to have an
insufficient quantity themselves. These forced vegetables give way, it is
true, as the season advances; but when in, they are always most to be
found at that end of the walk nearest the rising sun. As the year
proceeds, the lustier and more natural fruits are displayed--peaches that
have ripened with blushing cheek to the wind, gigantic strawberries,
raspberries, nectarines, or blooming plums. Feathery pines add their
mellow hue; and when these fail, the colour deepens into amber piles of
oranges, umber filberts, and the rich brown of Spanish chestnuts, the
produce of the waning year.
To leave, however, our fancied procession of the seasons, and to return to
the actual business of the market. As early as two o'clock in the morning,
a person looking down the dip of Piccadilly will perceive the first influx
of the daily supply of vegetables and fruit to Covent Garden market:
waggons of cabbages, built up and regularly faced, with the art rather of
the mason than the market-gardener; light spring-vans fragrant with
strawberries; and milk-white loads of turnips which slowly roll along the
great-western road, and bring the produce of the fertile alluvial shores
of the Thames to the great west-end mart. The pedestrian proceeding along
the southern and eastern roads sees the like stream of vegetable food
quietly converging to the same spot. From this hour, especially upon a
Saturday morning, until nine o'clock, the scene at the market itself is of
the most exciting description.
Without some organization it would be impossible to receive and display to
the advantage of the buyer and seller the varied products that in the grey
of the morning pours into so limited a space. Accordingly, different
portions of it are dedicated to distinct classes of vegetables and fruits.
The finest of the delicate soft fruit, such as strawberries, peaches, &c.,
are lodged, as we have mentioned, in the central alley of the market--the
inmost leaf of the rose. On the large covered space to the north of this
central alley is the wholesale fruit-station, fragrant with apples, pears,
greengages, or whatever is in season. The southern open space is
dedicated to cabbages and other vegetables; and the extreme south front is
wholly occupied by potato-salesmen. Around the whole quadrangle, during a
busy morning, there is a party-coloured fringe of waggons backed in
towards the central space, in which the light green of cabbages forms the
prevailing colour, interrupted here and there with the white of turnips,
or the deep orange of digit-like carrots; and as the spectator watches,
the whole mass is gradually absorbed into the centre of the market.
Meanwhile the space dedicated to wholesale fruit sales is all alive.
Columns of empty baskets twelve feet high seem progressing through the
crowd "of their own motion." The vans have arrived from the railways, and
rural England, side by side with the Continent, pours in its supplies from
many a sheltered mossy nook. It is very easy to discover by a glance which
are the home-grown, which the foreign contributions. There stand the
English baskets and sieves, solid and stout as Harry the Eighth, amidst
little hampers, as delicate as French ladies, and seemingly as incapable
of withstanding hard usage. Yet some of these have come from Algiers,
others from the south of France with greengages, and the majority from
Normandy. France is beginning to send large quantities of peaches and
nectarines, carefully packed with paper-shavings in small boxes; and even
strawberries this summer have found their way here from the same quarter.
The frosts which sometimes occur in the early part of the year, destroy
nearly all the fruit-crops in the neighbourhood of London; and were it not
for the bountiful stores which are brought from abroad, Covent Garden
would be little better than a desert.
The repeal of the high duty upon foreign fruit has so far widened the
field of supply that it can no longer be destroyed by an unusual fall of
the mercury. By means of the telegraph, the steamboat, and the railroad,
we annul the effects of frost, obliterate the sea, and command, at a few
hours' notice, the produce of the Continent. When there is a dearth in
this country the fact is immediately noticed by the great fruit-dealers in
the City: the telegraph forthwith conveys the information to Holland,
France, and Belgium; and within forty hours steamers from one or other of
these countries will be seen making towards the Downs and adjoining
coasts, and in another six their cargoes, fresh plucked from the
neighbourhoods of old Norman abbeys and quaint Flemish stadthouses, are
blooming in Covent Garden. Fruit that will bear delay comes up the Thames
by boat, and is discharged at the wharfs near London Bridge, but the major
part eventually finds its way to the "Garden." The South-Western and
South-Eastern are the two principal lines for foreign fruit: the former
brings large quantities of Spanish and Portuguese produce--such as
oranges, grapes, melons, nuts, &c.; the latter conveys apples, pears,
strawberries, peaches, nectarines, &c., from Dover, to which place they
are brought by steamers. To show how enormous is the supply from abroad,
we give, on the authority of the goods-manager of the South-Eastern line,
the amount brought by them in one night:--
100 tons of green peas from France.
50 " of fruit from Kent.
10 " of filberts from Kent.
25 " of plums from France.
10 " of black currants from France.
In all 195 tons; out of which 135 were from across the water. The Brighton
and South Coast transmit the produce of Jersey and Dieppe--apples, pears,
and plums--to the extent last year of about 300 tons. Of vegetables the
Great Northern is the principal carrier; last year they brought to town
the enormous quantity of 45,819 tons of potatoes, besides 1,940 tons of
other vegetables. The potatoes mainly proceed from the fen country.
Walnuts generally come by the Antwerp boats, which sometimes carry cargoes
of between 400 and 500 tons. Everybody who has travelled in the Low
Countries remembers the magnificent walnut-trees which grow along the
sides of the canals as commonly as elms in our own country. These eke out
our scantier native stores, and help to make cosier the after-dinner chat
over the glass of port. During two mornings that we visited Covent Garden
we saw 613 bushel-baskets of strawberries that had just come from
Honfleur, and upwards of 1,000 baskets of greengages arrived from the same
neighbourhood during the week. As we gazed, on one of these occasions upon
the solid walls of baskets extending down the market, crowned with
parapets of peach and nectarine boxes, we wondered in our own minds
whether it would ever be all sold, and the wonder increased as waggon
after waggon arrived, piled up as high as the second-floor windows of the
piazza. Venturing to express this doubt to a lazy-looking man who was
plaiting the strands of a whip, "Blessee, sir," he replied without looking
up from his work, "the main part on 'em will be at Brummagem by
dinner-time." True enough, while we had been guessing and wondering, a
nimble fellow had run to the telegraph and inquired of Birmingham and a
few distant towns whether they were in want of certain fruits that
morning. The answer being in the affirmative, the vans turned round,
rattled off to the North-Western station, and in another hour the
superfluity of Covent Garden was rushing on its way to fill up the
deficiency of the midland counties. Thus the wire and steam, both at home
and abroad, cause the supply to respond instantly to the demand, however
wide apart the two principles may be working.
The strawberry trade of Covent Garden is not likely, however, at present
to fall into the hands of foreigners. The London market-gardeners have
long looked with justice upon this fruit as particularly their own. By the
skill they have bestowed upon its culture it has advanced enormously, both
in flavour and size, from the old standard "hautboy" of our fathers, and
which foreigners mainly cultivate to the present day. Mr. Miatt, of
Deptford, is the great grower; by judicious grafting he has produced from
the old stock half-a-dozen different kinds, the most celebrated being the
"British Queen," which attains a prodigious size. Large quantities of
strawberries are sent to the market in light spring-vans. They are placed
in 1 lb. punnets or round willow baskets, or they are carefully piled in
pottles, and the process of "topping-up," as it is called, is considered
quite an art in the trade. The rarest and ripest fruit, which goes direct
to the pastrycooks, is still more deftly treated. Lest it should be
injured by jolting, horse is exchanged for human carriage. A procession of
eight or ten stout women, carrying baskets full of strawberry-pottles upon
their heads, may often be seen streaming in hot haste up Piccadilly,
preceded by a man, like so many sheep by a bell-wether. It is probable
that they have trudged all the way from Isleworth with the fruit, and, as
they frequently make two journeys in the day, the distance traversed is
not less than twenty-six miles.
After strawberries, perhaps peas are the most important article produced
by the market-gardeners. Dealers, in order to consult the convenience of
hotel-keepers and such as require suddenly a large supply for the table,
keep them ready for the saucepan; and not the least curious feature of
Covent Garden, about midday, is to see a dense mass of women--generally
old--seated in rows at the corner of the market, engaged in shelling them.
One salesman often employs as many as 400 persons in this occupation. The
major part of these auxiliaries belong to the poor-houses around; they
obtain permission to go out for this purpose, and the shilling or eighteen
pence a-day earned by some of the more expert is gladly exchanged for the
monotonous rations of the parish. In the autumn, again, there will be a
row of poor creatures, extending along the whole north side of the square,
shelling walnuts, each person having two baskets, one for the nuts,
another for the shells, which are bought by the catsup-makers. The poor
flock from all parts of the town directly a job of the kind is to be had.
If a fog happens in November, thousands of link-boys and men spring up
with ready-made torches; if a frost occurs, hundreds of men are to be
found on the Serpentine and other park waters, to sweep the ice or to put
on your skates: there are, in the busy part of the town half-a-dozen
fellows ready of a wet day to rush simultaneously to call a cab "for your
honour;" and every crossing when it grows muddy almost instantly has its
man and broom. A sad comment this upon the large floating population of
starving labour always to be found in the streets of London.
The busiest time at the market is about six o'clock, when the
costermongers surround Covent Garden with their barrows, and hundreds of
street hawkers, with their hand-baskets and trays, come for their day's
supply. The same system of purchase is pursued here as at
Billingsgate--the rich dealers buy largely and sell again, and the poorer
club their means and divide the produce. The regular street vender who
keeps his barrow, drawn by a donkey or a pony, looks down with a certain
contempt upon the inferior hawkers, principally Irish. They only deal in a
certain class of vegetables, such as peas, young potatoes, broccoli, or
cauliflowers, and have nothing to do with _mere greens_. Another class of
purchasers are the little girls who vend watercresses. Such is the demand
for cresses, that they are now largely cultivated for the market, the
spontaneous growth proving quite inadequate to the demand. They are
produced principally at "Spring Head," at Walthamstow, in Essex, and at
Cookham, Shrivenham, and Faringdon, on the line of the Great Western,
which brings to town no less than a ton a week of this wholesome breakfast
salad. The best, however, come from Camden Town. Most people fancy that
clear purling streams are necessary for their production; but the Camden
Town beds are planted in an old brick-field, watered by the Fleet Ditch;
and though the stream at this point is comparatively pure, they owe their
unusually luxuriant appearance to a certain admixture of the sewerage. A
great many hundreds of bunches are sold every morning in Covent Garden;
but the largest share goes to Farringdon Market. The entire supply to the
various metropolitan markets cannot be less than three tons weekly.
Rhubarb is almost wholly furnished by the London market-gardeners. It was
first introduced by Mr. Miatt forty years ago, who sent his two sons to
the Borough Market with five bunches, of which they only sold three. From
this time he continued its cultivation, notwithstanding the sneers at what
were called his "physic pies." As he predicted, it soon became a
favourite, and now hundreds of tons weight are sold in Covent Garden in
the course of the year. It would be impossible to give any precise account
of the fruit and vegetable produce that is poured day by day into London;
for the authorities themselves only know how many baskets arrive, not how
much they contain. The railway returns give us the quantity brought from a
distance, and we find that the seven lines transmit annually somewhere
about 70,000 tons of vegetables and soft green fruit. This is irrespective
of dried fruit, oranges, &c.--a business of itself, involving great
interests, and employing an immense capital, and of which we will say a
few words.