eton#, in his philosophical Survey of Middlesex,
estimates the quantity of garden-ground, within ten miles of the
metropolis, at 15,000 acres, giving employment in the fruit-season to
60,000 labourers. The mode of conveying this vast produce to market
creates habits among this numerous class of people which are little
suspected by the rest of the community. A gardener's life appears to
be one of the most primitive and natural; but, passed near London, it
is as artificial and unnatural as any known to our forced state of
society. Covent-garden market is held three days in the week, and
other markets on the same or other days; and, as vegetables ought to
be eaten as soon as possible after they are gathered, it is the
business of the gardener to gather one day and sell the next; hence
the intervening night is the period of conveyance from the places of
growth to those of consumption. All the roads round London, therefore,
are covered with market-carts, and waggons during the night, so that
they may reach the markets by three, four, or five o'clock, when the
dealers attend; and these markets are over by six or seven. The shops
of retailers are then supplied by the aid of ill-paid Irish women, who
carry loads of a hundredweight to all parts of London on their heads,
to meet the demands of good house-wives, who, at ten or eleven, buy
their garden-stuff for the day. This rapid routine creates a
prodigious quantity of labour for men, women, and horses. Every
gardener has his market-cart or carts, which he loads at sun-set; and,
they depart at ten, eleven, twelve, or one o'clock, according to the
distance from London. Each cart is accompanied by a driver, and also
by a person to sell, generally the gardener's wife; who, having sold
the load, returns with the team by nine or ten o'clock in the morning;
and has thus finished the business of the day, before half the
inhabitants of London have risen from their beds. Such is the economy
of every gardener's family within ten miles of London,--of some every
night, and of others every other night, during at least six months in
the year. The high vegetable season in summer, as well as peculiar
crops at other times, call for exertions of labour, or rather of
slavery, scarcely paralleled by any other class of people. Thus, in
the strawberry season, hundreds of women are employed to carry that
delicate fruit to market on their heads; and their industry in
performing this task is as wonderful