For all ones attempts to maintain a scholarly detachment, the craze – particularly the events of 1908 – remains an entertaining frenzy about money.
Alongside the media ‘frenzy’ and the crowds gathering at French gardens mentioned in press reports, there were the efforts of commercial organisations to turn a profit.
A French gardening supplies sector soon grew up, with advertising that often exploited the expectation whipped up by the Daily Mail. “Money Making Culture” shouted the headline of one advertisement from W.Cooper Ltd; while the Cheap Wood Company trumpeted “The Secret of Making Big Money out of French Gardening”. [1] Seed merchants, cloche manufacturers and horticultural retailers across the country can all be seen advertising under the banner ‘French gardening’.
A number of rapidly produced books appeared. All slim, paperback volumes their titles, such as Gold Producing Soil and French Gardening Without Capital, reflected the heady atmosphere while their content was of variable quality. [2] They were widely reviewed in the national and local press.
Advertisement columns for land and property sales began to reflect the interest in French gardening. Appending the words “suitable for French gardening” to otherwise standard descriptions of land was perhaps no more than conventional estate agent hyperbole. But other advertisements hint at the high pressure salesmanship associated with modern timeshare schemes. [3]
There were even fraudulent attempts to raise money by offers of shares to the general public. The prospectuses for Anglo-French Market Gardens Limited and Johnsons Limited were published widely in the national press and promised huge dividends based on the claimed profitability of French gardening. Both schemes failed, but only after their backers, Ebenezer Cox and George Beverley, were exposed as the men behind several other dubious fundraising schemes. [4]
[1] ‘Money Making Culture’, The Gardener, 12 September 1908, p.v; ‘The Secret of Making Big Money’, Thomas Smith, French Gardening (London: Utopia Press, 1909), endmatter.
[2] T. Newsome, Gold Producing Soil (Stroud: Frederick Steel & Co., 1908); E. Kennedy Anton, French Gardening Without Capital (London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1908)
[3] e.g. ‘Freehold Land for French Gardening’, Morning Post, 14 September 1908, p.10, col.5
[4] ‘Anglo-French Cabbage Gardening’, Reynolds Newspaper, 25 October 1908, p.8