* GREEDY LONDON!
In talking, during the fruit and vegetable harvest, with various producers (and seedsmen corroborate :them) I find that they unite in bringing a particular charge against the Cockney in general and Covent Garden in particular as compared with the Northerner or Midlander. Covent Garden insists on size, irrespective of quality, in cabbages; pea and bean pods, fruit or what not. Mere size is the first attribute demanded. Contrariwise, the people of Birmingham or Man- chester seek out flavour and quality. The distinction makes a real difference to the producer and is at the back of a preference that is general in some districts for the Midland and Northern over the London Markets. However, in certain foods size is a disqualification in any market. There is a recently hybridised tomato so thin in the skin and so soft in tissue that it can be pleasureably eaten like any fruit ; but it is rather large ; and since tomatoes are usually sold by the pound, an exact poundage cannot be supplied : the fruit is too big and the retailers demand something smaller and more adaptable to sale by weight.
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