A French _maraîcher_ having been invited for this purpose, and 2,500
glass-bells, 1,000 lights for frames, a windmill pump, etc., having
been bought at a considerable cost, the work of the French gardener
on two acres of land was carefully followed by the manager of the
farm, Mr. T. Smith, day by day, to be afterwards described and
illustrated by photographs for the use of those who would like to try
their hand at the same work.
Most of my readers will probably ask first of all: What were the
money results of this venture? But it would have been foolish to
expect that in this first experiment everything should have run as
smoothly as it runs, let us say, in the Channel Islands, where the
many years’ practice of a whole population has worked out the best
methods of culture.
Thus the frames were not ready in time for giving an early crop of
melons; and although the melons grown at Mayland were excellent, and
gave the first year as much as £188, they would have given much more
than that had they been ready in the middle of June, which would have
been possible if the frames and lights had been supplied in time.
With all that, the results obtained during the first year were
really striking. All taken, Mr. Smith shows that if the gardener
has a one-acre garden, and if £494 (say, £550) be spent for 1,000
glass-bells, 300 lights and 100 frames, 500 mats, the water-supply,
the packing-shed, the fencing, the cart, horse and harness, etc.,
and £413 (say, £450) for 500 tons of manure, the rent, rates and
water, and the wages and salaries (£250), the gross returns for the
first year would reach £300 (making full allowance for “inexperience
in this _special_ work”). They would reach from £400 to £450 during
the second year, there being greater productiveness and a lower
expenditure after the loam has been _made_ by heavy manuring, and
personal experience has been won, as well as experience for a given
locality.
Taking a one-acre farm, of which only one-third is used for a French
garden, the first year’s expenditure for bells, lights, fencing,
horse manure, water, and rent and taxes would be a little less than
£300, and the returns by the end of the first year would be about
£150. “Afterwards the returns ought to reach from £200 to £250 each
year,” Mr. Smith writes.
All that need be added to these words is, that Mr. Smith is extremely
cautious in his estimates, and that, seeing the high crops obtained
at Mayland, and fully dealt with in Mr. Smith’s works, one is
entitled to expect even better money results.
Unfortunately, after having worked at the farm for one year, the
experienced French gardener, who had obtained the just-mentioned
results, left Mayland. Two young French gardeners, far less
experienced, were invited instead, and they began to undo what their
predecessor had done, in order to carry on the work on the lines they
had learned themselves. So that it is impossible to know yet what the
results of these new methods will be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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