MARKET GARDENS. The market gar , dens near London, which chiefly supply Covent Garden market, have a soil which is a moist alluvial loom deposited from repented overflowings of the Thames, which are now prevented by banks or dykes. The gardener's year properly begins in autumn, when the land is dug, or rather trenched, and well manured. Various vegetables which will be required in winter are now sown, and espe cially those which are to produce plants to be set out in spring; spinach, onions, radishes, and winter salads are sown, and, when the weather is severe, are protected by a slight covering of straw or mats. In February, the cauliflowers which have been raised in frames or under hand-glasses are planted out. The cabbage plants are pricked out. The radishes, onions, and salads go to market as soon as they are of sufficient size, and sugar•loaf cab bages succeed them. As the cauliflowers are taken off, they are succeeded by endive and celery, and the same is the case with the cab bages. Thus there is a constant succession of vegetables, without ono moment's respite to the ground.
The principle on which the gardens are cultivated is that of forcing vegetation by means of an abundant supply of dung, con stant tillage, and occasional watering. The whole surface is converted into a species of hotbed ; and crop succeeds crop with a rapi dity which is truly astonishing. Those vege tables which arrive at a marketable state in the least time are always the most profitable, and those also for which there is constant demand at all times of the year. With an abundant supply of manure, the market-gar deners have no fear of exhausting the soil; and dissimilar vegetables may grow together on the same ground. Raspberries, ggoose between fruit trees ; which rows being thirty or forty feet apart,leave ample room for vege tables. The market gardeners near London le not raise many peas or beans, except such as are forced and require glass frames to pro , ect them. The chief supply of peas in season comes from a greater distance, Ind is the produce of whole fields sown for that purpose by the farmers within a moderate finance of London. An acre of the richest
garden ground near London is said to yiel produce valued at 2201. in a year.
An abundant supply of manure is pensable in a market garden, and this ca generally bo obtained in large towns at a tr fling expense. The neighbourhood of a tow is therefore a necessary circumstance toward the production of the crop, as well as its sab The profits of a garden near London, of th extent of ten or twelve acres, are as great a that of a farm of ten times the extent cult rated in the best manner, without the help c purchased manure.
The Morning Chronicle has lately give some interesting statistical details respectin the supply of London from the market gal dens. The Green Markets are the Covent Gm den, the Borough, Spitalfiolds, Farringdor Portman and Hungerford Markets. Of thes Covent Garden is not only the largest, but i said to be the largest in the world. It i divided into six sections, for fruit stands flower stands, potato stands, casual cal stands, yearly cart stands, and yearly pitchin stands, all of which pay a rental according t the kind of commodity sold, and the cor veniences required for the sale. The follow ing is given as one recent year's amount c sales at Covent Garden market, all of holm grown produce : Apples 360,000 bushels.
Pears 230,000 „ Cherries 90,000 ,, Plums 93,000 „ Gooseberries 140,000 „ Currants 90,000 sieves.
Strawberries 638,000 potties.
Raspberries 30,000 sieves.
Filberts 1,000 tons.
Walnuts bushels.
Cabbages 16,000 loads.
Turnips 10,000 „ Carrots 5,000 „ Onions 500,000 bushels.
Brocoli, Cauliflowers 1,000 loads.
Peas 270,000 bushels.
Beans 100,000 „ Celery 18 million heads Asparagus 60 17 Endive 150,000 scores.
French Beans 140,000 bushels.
Potatoes 83,000 tons.
Watercresses 23,000 cwt.
All the other vegetable markets of Londe united, present but a small aggregate, con pared with this of Covent Garden.