The market-gardeners of Penzance are beginning to send up many of these early vegetables, the mildness of the south-western extremity of Cornwall giving them a wonderful advantage over every other part of the kingdom. Gentlemen’s gardeners also contribute somewhat, by sending to the salesmen such of the produce of their glazed houses as is not consumed in the family, and receive articles in return of which they happen to have an insufficient quantity themselves. These forced vegetables give way, it is true, as the season advances; but when in, they are always most to be found at that end of the walk nearest the rising sun. As the year proceeds, the lustier and more natural fruits are displayed—peaches that have ripened with blushing cheek to the wind, gigantic strawberries, raspberries, nectarines, or blooming plums. Feathery pines add their mellow hue; and when these fail, the colour deepens into amber piles of oranges, umber filberts, and the rich brown of Spanish chestnuts, the produce of the waning year.

To leave, however, our fancied procession of the seasons, and to return to the actual business of the market. As early as two o’clock in the morning, a person looking down the dip of Piccadilly will perceive the first influx of the daily supply of vegetables and fruit to Covent Garden market: waggons of cabbages, built up and regularly faced, with the art rather of the mason than the market-gardener; light spring-vans fragrant with strawberries; and milk-white loads of turnips which slowly roll along the great-western road, and bring the produce of the fertile alluvial shores of the Thames to the great west-end mart. The pedestrian proceeding along the southern and eastern roads sees the like stream of vegetable food quietly converging to the same spot. From this hour, especially upon a Saturday morning, until nine o’clock, the scene at the market itself is of the most exciting description.

Without some organization it would be impossible to receive and display to the advantage of the buyer and seller the varied products that in the grey of the morning pours into so limited a space. Accordingly, different portions of it are dedicated to distinct classes of vegetables and fruits. The finest of the delicate soft fruit, such as strawberries, peaches, &c., are lodged, as we have mentioned, in the central alley of the market—the inmost leaf of the rose. On the large covered space to the north of this central alley is the wholesale fruit-station, fragrant with apples, pears, greengages, or whatever is in season. The southern open space is dedicated to cabbages and other vegetables; and the extreme south front is wholly occupied by potato-salesmen. Around the whole quadrangle, during a busy morning, there is a party-coloured fringe of waggons backed in towards the central space, in which the light green of cabbages forms the prevailing colour, interrupted here and there with the white of turnips, or the deep orange of digit-like carrots; and as the spectator watches, the whole mass is gradually absorbed into the centre of the market. Meanwhile the space dedicated to wholesale fruit sales is all alive. Columns of empty baskets twelve feet high seem progressing through the crowd “of their own motion.” The vans have arrived from the railways, and rural England, side by side with the Continent, pours in its supplies from many a sheltered mossy nook. It is very easy to discover by a glance which are the home-grown, which the foreign contributions. There stand the English baskets and sieves, solid and stout as Harry the Eighth, amidst little hampers, as delicate as French ladies, and seemingly as incapable of withstanding hard usage. Yet some of these have come from Algiers, others from the south of France with greengages, and the majority from Normandy. France is beginning to send large quantities of peaches and nectarines, carefully packed with paper-shavings in small boxes; and even strawberries this summer have found their way here from the same quarter. The frosts which sometimes occur in the early part of the year, destroy nearly all the fruit-crops in the neighbourhood of London; and were it not for the bountiful stores which are brought from abroad, Covent Garden would be little better than a desert.

The repeal of the high duty upon foreign fruit has so far widened the field of supply that it can no longer be destroyed by an unusual fall of the mercury. By means of the telegraph, the steamboat, and the railroad, we annul the effects of frost, obliterate the sea, and command, at a few hours’ notice, the produce of the Continent. When there is a dearth in this country the fact is immediately noticed by the great fruit-dealers in the City: the telegraph forthwith conveys the information to Holland, France, and Belgium; and within forty hours steamers from one or other of these countries will be seen making towards the Downs and adjoining coasts, and in another six their cargoes, fresh plucked from the neighbourhoods of old Norman abbeys and quaint Flemish stadthouses, are blooming in Covent Garden. Fruit that will bear delay comes up the Thames by boat, and is discharged at the wharfs near London Bridge, but the major part eventually finds its way to the “Garden.” The South-Western and South-Eastern are the two principal lines for foreign fruit: the former brings large quantities of Spanish and Portuguese produce—such as oranges, grapes, melons, nuts, &c.; the latter conveys apples, pears, strawberries, peaches, nectarines, &c., from Dover, to which place they are brought by steamers. To show how enormous is the supply from abroad, we give, on the authority of the goods-manager of the South-Eastern line, the amount brought by them in one night:—

100tonsof green peas from France.
50"of fruit from Kent.
10"of filberts from Kent.
25"of plums from France.
10"of black currants from France.

In all 195 tons; out of which 135 were from across the water. The Brighton and South Coast transmit the produce of Jersey and Dieppe—apples, pears, and plums—to the extent last year of about 300 tons. Of vegetables the Great Northern is the principal carrier; last year they brought to town the enormous quantity of 45,819 tons of potatoes, besides 1,940 tons of other vegetables. The potatoes mainly proceed from the fen country. Walnuts generally come by the Antwerp boats, which sometimes carry cargoes of between 400 and 500 tons. Everybody who has travelled in the Low Countries remembers the magnificent walnut-trees which grow along the sides of the canals as commonly as elms in our own country. These eke out our scantier native stores, and help to make cosier the after-dinner chat over the glass of port. During two mornings that we visited Covent Garden we saw 613 bushel-baskets of strawberries that had just come from Honfleur, and upwards of 1,000 baskets of greengages arrived from the same neighbourhood during the week. As we gazed, on one of these occasions upon the solid walls of baskets extending down the market, crowned with parapets of peach and nectarine boxes, we wondered in our own minds whether it would ever be all sold, and the wonder increased as waggon after waggon arrived, piled up as high as the second-floor windows of the piazza. Venturing to express this doubt to a lazy-looking man who was plaiting the strands of a whip, “Blessee, sir,” he replied without looking up from his work, “the main part on ’em will be at Brummagem by dinner-time.” True enough, while we had been guessing and wondering, a nimble fellow had run to the telegraph and inquired of Birmingham and a few distant towns whether they were in want of certain fruits that morning. The answer being in the affirmative, the vans turned round, rattled off to the North-Western station, and in another hour the superfluity of Covent Garden was rushing on its way to fill up the deficiency of the midland counties. Thus the wire and steam, both at home and abroad, cause the supply to respond instantly to the demand, however wide apart the two principles may be working.

The strawberry trade of Covent Garden is not likely, however, at present to fall into the hands of foreigners. The London market-gardeners have long looked with justice upon this fruit as particularly their own. By the skill they have bestowed upon its culture it has advanced enormously, both in flavour and size, from the old standard “hautboy” of our fathers, and which foreigners mainly cultivate to the present day. Mr. Miatt, of Deptford, is the great grower; by judicious grafting he has produced from the old stock half-a-dozen different kinds, the most celebrated being the “British Queen,” which attains a prodigious size. Large quantities of strawberries are sent to the market in light spring-vans. They are placed in 1 lb. punnets or round willow baskets, or they are carefully piled in pottles, and the process of “topping-up,” as it is called, is considered quite an art in the trade. The rarest and ripest fruit, which goes direct to the pastrycooks, is still more deftly treated. Lest it should be injured by jolting, horse is exchanged for human carriage. A procession of eight or ten stout women, carrying baskets full of strawberry-pottles upon their heads, may often be seen streaming in hot haste up Piccadilly, preceded by a man, like so many sheep by a bell-wether. It is probable that they have trudged all the way from Isleworth with the fruit, and, as they frequently make two journeys in the day, the distance traversed is not less than twenty-six miles.

After strawberries, perhaps peas are the most important article produced by the market-gardeners. Dealers, in order to consult the convenience of hotel-keepers and such as require suddenly a large supply for the table, keep them ready for the saucepan; and not the least curious feature of Covent Garden, about midday, is to see a dense mass of women—generally old—seated in rows at the corner of the market, engaged in shelling them. One salesman often employs as many as 400 persons in this occupation. The major part of these auxiliaries belong to the poor-houses around; they obtain permission to go out for this purpose, and the shilling or eighteen pence a-day earned by some of the more expert is gladly exchanged for the monotonous rations of the parish. In the autumn, again, there will be a row of poor creatures, extending along the whole north side of the square, shelling walnuts, each person having two baskets, one for the nuts, another for the shells, which are bought by the catsup-makers. The poor flock from all parts of the town directly a job of the kind is to be had. If a fog happens in November, thousands of link-boys and men spring up with ready-made torches; if a frost occurs, hundreds of men are to be found on the Serpentine and other park waters, to sweep the ice or to put on your skates: there are, in the busy part of the town half-a-dozen fellows ready of a wet day to rush simultaneously to call a cab “for your honour;” and every crossing when it grows muddy almost instantly has its man and broom. A sad comment this upon the large floating population of starving labour always to be found in the streets of London.

The busiest time at the market is about six o’clock, when the costermongers surround Covent Garden with their barrows, and hundreds of street hawkers, with their hand-baskets and trays, come for their day’s supply. The same system of purchase is pursued here as at Billingsgate—the rich dealers buy largely and sell again, and the poorer club their means and divide the produce. The regular street vender who keeps his barrow, drawn by a donkey or a pony, looks down with a certain contempt upon the inferior hawkers, principally Irish. They only deal in a certain class of vegetables, such as peas, young potatoes, broccoli, or cauliflowers, and have nothing to do with mere greens. Another class of purchasers are the little girls who vend watercresses. Such is the demand for cresses, that they are now largely cultivated for the market, the spontaneous growth proving quite inadequate to the demand. They are produced principally at “Spring Head,” at Walthamstow, in Essex, and at Cookham, Shrivenham, and Faringdon, on the line of the Great Western, which brings to town no less than a ton a week of this wholesome breakfast salad. The best, however, come from Camden Town. Most people fancy that clear purling streams are necessary for their production; but the Camden Town beds are planted in an old brick-field, watered by the Fleet Ditch; and though the stream at this point is comparatively pure, they owe their unusually luxuriant appearance to a certain admixture of the sewerage. A great many hundreds of bunches are sold every morning in Covent Garden; but the largest share goes to Farringdon Market. The entire supply to the various metropolitan markets cannot be less than three tons weekly. Rhubarb is almost wholly furnished by the London market-gardeners. It was first introduced by Mr. Miatt forty years ago, who sent his two sons to the Borough Market with five bunches, of which they only sold three. From this time he continued its cultivation, notwithstanding the sneers at what were called his “physic pies.” As he predicted, it soon became a favourite, and now hundreds of tons weight are sold in Covent Garden in the course of the year. It would be impossible to give any precise account of the fruit and vegetable produce that is poured day by day into London; for the authorities themselves only know how many baskets arrive, not how much they contain. The railway returns give us the quantity brought from a distance, and we find that the seven lines transmit annually somewhere about 70,000 tons of vegetables and soft green fruit. This is irrespective of dried fruit, oranges, &c.—a business of itself, involving great interests, and employing an immense capital, and of which we will say a few words.

The foreign-fruit trade has its head-quarters in the city. The pedestrian who walks down Fish Street Hill would assuredly never surmise that at certain seasons a regular fruit exhibition is kept up within those dull brick houses, before which the tall column lifts its head. All the world knows the Messrs. Keeling and Hunt, whose effigies seem to stand, in the public eye, upon a vast pyramid of pine-apples. This firm hold sales of various kinds of fruit in their auction-rooms in Monument Yard. On these occasions the long apartments make a show, before which, for quantity at least, that of Chiswick pales. Pine-apples by thousands, melons, forbidden fruit, and mangoes, fill the room from end to end; so famous indeed is the display, that there are lithographic engravings of it, in which the salesmen are seen walking about as perplexed, apparently by the luscious luxuriance around them, as Adam might have been in his own happy garden. The pine-apple market is of modern date. The first cargo was brought over about twenty years ago, and since that time the traffic has rapidly increased, and at the present moment 300,000 pines come yearly into the port of London, of which nine-tenths are consigned to Messrs. Keeling and Hunt, the original importers. They are principally from the Bahamas, in the West Indies, where they grow almost spontaneously; but of late years they have been more carefully cultivated, and grafts of our best hothouse pines have been taken out to improve their quality. There is a fleet of clippers appropriated to the carriage across the sea of this single fruit. The melons come from Spain, Portugal, and Holland. Spain is known to abound in melons, for Murillo’s beggar-boys are perpetually eating them; but we believe it will be news to most Englishmen that the land of dykes supplies London with fragrant cargoes of an almost tropical fruit. The largest foreign-fruit trade, however, by far, is that in oranges. We shall perhaps astonish our readers when we tell them that upwards of 60,000,000 are imported for the use of London alone, accompanied by not less than 15,000,000 lemons. Any time between December and May the orange clippers from the Azores and Lisbon may be seen unloading their cargoes in the neighbourhood of the great stores in Pudding and Botolph Lanes. There are 240 of these fast-sailing vessels engaged in the entire trade, and of this fleet seventy at least are employed in supplying the windows of the fruiterers and the apple-stalls of London. All these fruits, together with nuts and walnuts, apples, plums, pears, and some peaches, &c., are disposed of weekly at the auction sales in Monument Yard to the general dealers, the majority of whom are located in Duke’s Place, close at hand, and are mostly Jews. Indeed we are informed that many of them are the identical boys grown up to manhood that used some twenty-five years ago to sell oranges about the streets, and whose old place has gradually been taken by the Irish. They act as middlemen between the importers and the tribe of peripatetics who, at certain times of the day, resort hither to fill their baskets and barrows. Covent Garden also supplies retailers with oranges and nuts, especially on Sunday mornings, when the place is sometimes crowded like a fair. The following bill of quantities, drawn up by Mr. Keeling, is derived, we believe, from the Custom House returns:—