The same, however, cannot yet be said of the _culture maraîchère_ of the French market-gardeners which is being introduced now into this country. Many attempts have been made in this direction in different parts of the country with varied degrees of success; but little or nothing is known about the results. An attempt on a large scale was made, as is known, by some Evesham gardeners. Having read about this sort of culture in France, and the wonderful results obtained by it, some of the Evesham gardeners went to Paris with the intention of learning that culture from the Paris _maraîchers_. Finding that impossible, they invited a French gardener to Evesham, gave him three-quarters of an acre, and, after he had brought from his Paris _marais_ his glass-bells, frames and lights, and, above all, his knowledge, he began gardening under the eyes of his Evesham colleagues. “Happily enough,” he said to an interviewer, “I do not speak English; otherwise I should have had to talk all the time and give explanations, instead of working. So I show them my black trousers, and tell them in signs: ‘Begin by making the soil as black as these trousers, then everything will be all right.’” Of course, to be profitable, immense quantities of stable manure are required, as also immense numbers of glass-bells and glass-frames, which represent a very costly outlay, and plenty of watering, to say nothing of the powers of observation required for developing a new branch of gardening in new surroundings. What were the results obtained at Evesham it is difficult to say, the more so as the money results which, according to some papers, were obtained the first year (_brutto_ income of £750 from three-quarters of an acre) seem to have been exaggerated for a first-year crop, and thus awakened scepticism with regard to that sort of culture altogether. Another experiment in the same direction was made on the estate of Mayland, in Essex, which was bought by Mr. Joseph Fels in order to promote small farming in England. It must be said that, apart from the cold, damp climate of this part of England, the heavy clay of Essex represents the least appropriate soil for spade culture. In England, as everywhere, this sort of culture has always been developing in preference _on a light loam_, or in such places, like Jersey, where a meagre granitic soil could easily be manured--in this special case by sea-weeds. Nevertheless, the aim of Mr. Fels having been chiefly educational, this aim has certainly been achieved, as we have now, in three different works of Mr. Thomas Smith, the manager of the farm, practical manuals teaching the would-be gardener the essentials of “French Gardening.”[127]