The Nursery Grounds Of this county are presumed to occupy about 1,500 acres, lying mostly in the neighbourhoods of Chelsea, Brompton, Kensington, Hackney, Dalston, Bow, and Mile End. The nurserymen spare no pains in collecting the choicest sort, and the greatest variety, of fruit trees, and ornamental shrubs, and flowers, from every quarter of the globe; and they cultivate them in a high degree of perfection; the latter, to a very great extent, and to almost an endless variety. The taste for elegant and rare plants has become so prevalent of late years, that the rearing them for sale now forms a considerable object of commerce; and the English gardeners have attained such celebrity for the cultivation of exotics, that now, in the times of peace, a great exportation of these articles takes place to France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Russia, and other countries.
Source: Leigh's New Picture of London. Printed for Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand;
by W. Clowes, Northumberland Court. 1819