[61] Ponce, _La culture maraîchère_, 1869; Gressent, _Le potager moderne_, 7th edition in 1886; Courtois-Gérard, _Manuel pratique de culture maraîchère_, 1863; L. G. Gillekens, _Cours pratique de culture maraîchère_, Bruxelles, 1895; Vilmorin, _Le bon jardinier_ (almanac). The general reader who cares to know about the productivity of the soil will find plenty of examples, well classified, in the most interesting work _La Répartition métrique des impôts_, by A. Toubeau, 2 vols., 1880. I do not quote many excellent English manuals, but I must remark that the market-gardening culture in this country has also obtained results very highly prized by the Continental gardeners, and that the chief reproach to be addressed to it is its relatively small extension. French market-gardening having been lately introduced into England, several manuals have been published for that purpose. The little work, _French Gardening_, by Thomas Smith, London (Utopia Press), 1909, deserves special mention, as it contains the results of one year’s observation of the work of a French gardener, specially invited to England by Mr. Joseph Fels, and gives (with illustrations) a mass of practical indications and numerical data as to the cost and the value of the produce. A subsequent work of the same author, _The Profitable Culture of Vegetables for Market Gardeners, Small Holders, and Others_, London (Longmans, Green), 1911, deals in detail with the ordinary culture of vegetables and the intensive culture of the French gardeners. [62] _Manuel pratique de culture maraîchère_, by Courtois-Gérard, 4th edit., 1868. [63] Already it is partly removed in France and Belgium, owing to the public laboratories where analyses of seeds and manure are made free. The falsifications discovered by these laboratories exceed all that could have been imagined. Manures, containing only one-fifth part of the nutritious elements they were supposed to contain, were found to be quite common; while manures containing injurious matters, and no nutritious parts whatever, were not unfrequently supplied by firms of “respectable” repute. With seeds, things stand even worse. Samples of grass seeds which contained 20 per cent. of injurious grasses, or 20 per cent. of grains of sand, so coloured as to deceive the buyer, or even 10 per cent. of a deadly poisonous grass, passed through the Ghent laboratory. [64] During the winter of 1890 a friend of mine, who lived in a London suburb, used to get his butter from Bavaria _per parcel post_. It cost him 10s. the eleven pounds in Bavaria, parcel post inclusive (2s. 2d.), 6d. for the money order, and 2½d. the letter; total, less than 11s. Butter of an inferior quality (out of comparison), with 10 to 15 per cent. of water inclusive, was sold in London at 1s. 6d. the lb. at the same time.