not a _fourth_ of that
quantity. A _square mile_ contains, leaving out parts of a hundred, 700
acres of land; and 19,000 acres occupy more than _twenty-two square
miles_. Are there twenty-two square miles covered with the Wen's market
gardens? The very question is absurd. The whole of the market gardens from
Brompton to Hammersmith, extending to Battersea Rise on the one side, and
to the Bayswater road on the other side, and leaving out loads, lanes,
nurseries; pastures, corn-fields, and pleasure-grounds, do not, in my
opinion, cover _one square mile_. To the north and south of the Wen there
is very little in the way of market garden; and if, on both sides of the
Thames, to the eastward of the Wen, there be _three square miles_ actually
covered with market gardens, that is the full extent. How, then, could the
Wen be supplied, if it required _ten rods_ to each family? To be sure,
potatoes, carrots, and turnips, and especially the first of these, are
brought, for the use of the Wen, from a great distance, in many cases.
But, so they are for the use of the persons I am speaking of; for a
gentleman thinks no more of raising a large quantity of these things in
his _garden_, than he thinks of _raising wheat there_. How is it, then,
that it requires half an acre, or eighty rods, in a _private_ garden to
supply a family, while these market gardeners supply all these families
(and so amply too) from ten, or more likely, five rods of ground to a
family? I have shown, in the last Number, that nearly fifteen tons of
vegetables can be raised in a year upon forty rods of ground; that is to
say, _ten loads for a wagon and four good horses_. And is not a fourth, or
even an eighth, part of this weight, sufficient to go down the throats of
a family in a year? Nay, allow that only _a ton_ goes to a family in a
year, it is more than _six pound weight a day_; and what sort of a family
must that be that really _swallows_ six pounds weight a day? and this a
market gardener will raise for them upon less than _three rods_ of ground;
for he will raise, in the course of the year, even more than fifteen tons
upon forty rods of ground. What is it, then, that they _do_ with the
eighty rods of ground in a private garden? Why, in the first place, they
have _one crop_ where they ought to have _three_. Then they do not half
_till_ the ground. Then they grow things that are _not wanted_. Plant
cabbages and other things, let them stand till they be good fo