PETITE CULTURE FROM FRANCE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2095, 22 January 1908, Page 1

PETITE CULTURE FROM FRANCE

An interesting experiment is being tried in the village of Maylands, Essex. Two French peasants havo been brought over to show us how tho two-acre French market garden is worked. These two-acre plots that one finds in the suburbs of Paris aro world-famed for thoir advanced gardening system and profitableness. Such little garden estates as thoso provide Paris and London with their early radishes, carrots, lettuces, endives, etc. Most of these notablo gardens have been handed down from father to son through centuries of 'labor. Tho soil and capital of several generations are in a French petite culture plot; tho land has been acquired foot by foot through patience and saving. A well-situated and skilfully-managed two-acre garden will return gross £IOOO, and a . net yearly income of £l6O. Two skilled French gardeners, father and son, woro brought over to Marylauds, favorably situated near London, to start such a garden ground, and they are now hard at work in the sabots and blue blouses of the French peasant. From sth February, when the first sod was turned, up to 23rd Juno, four crops of lucrative vegetables were taken off, and a fifth of late lettuces was flourishing at that date It is a matter of skill and science. Tho crops of a “French garden” are grown with brains. It is to be hoped that tho idea will expand in practical shape, though the heavy capital outlay required to start .is against tho idea, agriculture and floriculture being arts borift of money on a big scale. To properly equip a two-acre “French garden” with the necessary he'll and beehive lights, ,to enrich and furnish tho almost entirely artificial soil of which it is composed, no less than £2OOO is required. It lias paid the French gardener to invest this capital in his garden.