Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1877 — The Watercress Trade in Paris. [ARTICLE]

The Watercress Trade in Paris.

Watercresses are now an important article of commerce in Paris, where their consumption has of late years increased enormously. Formerly Paris depended for its watercresses on crops gathered by night from brooks and ponds by persons who made it their business to traverse the country for some miles around the city in search of them, and they were, as a rule, of very inferior quality. In 1810 an officer of the French Army, being at Erfurth, saw a number of wide ditches filled with spring walercresses, and conceived the idea of forming in the Valley of Nonette, Semis and Chantilly, a similar cress-growing establishment conducted on a system. This led to a great development of cress-culture and of the market for this plant. Other cress-growers started in business in the environ* of Paris, and at the present time,

at all seasons, more than thirty cartloads of cresses are sent into Paris daily, each load being worth about 300 francs, representing a consumption of about 0,000 francs’ worth of cresses in the twenty-four hours, or more than 3,000,000 francs’ ($600,000) worth a year.— Pall Mall Ga eette.