120 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS 



fields of broccoli or potatoes. The average rent in this 

 especially favoured district (there is a pool in close 

 proximity to Marazion Station, on which, so mild is the 

 climate, no skating has been possible for eleven years) 

 is about 5 per acre, though there are particular farms 

 for which 7 or 8, or even 10, per acre is paid. The 

 tendency, however, is for growers to go further afield, 

 where, though the climatic conditions are not so favour- 

 able, the rents are less, and a good deal of fresh land is 

 coming into cultivation for broccoli at Gwinear Road, 

 Nancegollan, and elsewhere. Downs which have been 

 covered with furze from time immemorial are being 

 cleared, and the rentals of land in the newer districts 

 are already steadily rising, the amounts thereof being 

 swollen in some places to uncommercial proportions 

 by the aspirations of Cornish miners who have returned 

 from abroad with substantial savings, and are not very 

 particular about rent, so long as they can ' get a bit of 

 land.' In the neighbourhood of Gwinear Road alone 

 about 120 acres of fresh land have been brought under 

 broccoli cultivation during the last four years, while the 

 consignments from this district increased from 330 tons 

 in 1902 to 572 tons in 1905, and are expected to 

 amount to close on 700 tons in 1906. From Nance- 

 gollan (a famous tin-mining district forty years ago, and 

 then employing 1,000 hands) the consignments in 1905 

 were 342 tons nearly double the total for 1904. 



The growth of the broccoli traffic in the West 

 Cornwall district in general during a period of ten years 

 is well shown by the following figures : 



Tons. Tons. 



1896 12,821 



1897 11,112 



1898 12,395 



1899 12,452 



1900 I4>770 



1901 ...... 16896 



1903 ...... 16,954 



1904 ...... 14,373 



1905 ...... 19.092 



