EXISTING SMALL HOLDINGS 97 



The farm was originally let at l an acre, and 

 a considerable portion was planted with fruit by 

 the tenant, who received the initial cost of planting 

 from the next tenant. 



Bits of this land are now letting at 6 to 7 an 

 acre, owing to the general rise in the value of land 

 suitable for fruit-growing, since its introduction in 

 the district. 



The tenant of the 40 acres is the son of a 

 labourer who held some fruit land, and was able 

 to set his son up on the farm when the land was 

 cut up. 



He keeps cows and sheep, and goes in for 

 ordinary farming. He has 600 head of poultry 

 in portable houses on the grass land, which his 

 wife manages as well as the dairy, besides attending 

 Plymouth Market with chickens and dairy produce. 



Several labourers are employed on the farm. 



Of the men occupying the fruit holdings, two 

 brothers have 8^ acres, for which they pay 56 a 

 year. Their father was a bargeman, and one of 

 them worked as a gardener until he was able to 

 take this piece of land, which involved paying a 

 sum of about 75 for the original cost of the fruit- 

 trees. 



Besides fruit, he grows flowers, chiefly white 

 ones, for church decorations. Several pounds had 

 been realized a year from narcissi planted under 

 plum-trees and between gooseberry - bushes on 

 1% acres. One of the plum-trees had yielded 100 

 pounds of fruit at 5d. a pound. 



7 



