The Fruit Gardens Of Middlesex, exclusive of those attached to private houses, and gentlemen's villas, are supposed to occupy about 3,000 acres, principally situated on both sides of the high road from Kensington through the parishes of Hammersmith, Brentford, Isleworth, and Twickenham. They furnish constant employment, on an average, to about ten or twelve persons per acre, men, women, and children; but during the fruit season this number is increased to about forty, the produce of whose labour, in their various occupations, is thought to amount to 300,0001. annually; and to this another 100,0001. may be added for the produce of the fruit sent to the metropolis from the surrounding counties; the whole making a total of 400,0001. The fruit gardens have what they call an upper and under crop growing on the same ground at one time. First, the ground is stocked with apples, pears, cherries, plums, walnuts, &c., like a complete orchard, which they call the upper crop: secondly, it is fully planted with raspberries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries, and all such fruit, shrubs, and herbs, as are known to sustain the shade and drip from the trees above them with the least injury; this they term the under crop. Some of these gardens have walls, which are completely clothed with wall fruits, such as nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums, and various others, all properly adapted to the aspect of the wall. In order to increase the quantity of shelter and warmth in autumn, they raise earthen banks of about three feet high, laid to a slope of about 45 degrees to the sun: on these slopes they plant endive in the month of September, and near the bottom of them, from October till Christmas, they drill a row of pease: by this means the endive is preserved from rotting, and, as well as the pease, comes to maturity nearly as early as if it had been planted in borders under a wall. Besides the quantity of fruits raised from these gardens, the London markets receive additional supplies from the gardens on the Surrey side of the Thames; and much is also brought from Kent, Essex, Berks, and other counties: these supplies amount to upwards of one third of the whole consumption of the metropolis.
Source: Leigh's New Picture of London. Printed for Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand;
by W. Clowes, Northumberland Court. 1819