122 SPECIAL VEGETABLE CROPS 



to a trustworthy man in a wholesale market ; or, if they 

 discard the local middleman, and themselves consign 

 to a London or provincial market, they may pack their 

 broccoli badly, and send either to some town where the 

 supply is over-abundant, or to some salesman who is not 

 honest, with the result that they may find their return 

 diminish to is. or so the crate, while other growers, 

 better business men, will make up to 75. or 8s. the crate. 

 In certain individual cases I heard of growers of the 

 latter type who are reputed to have made from 400 up to 

 800 or ^1,000 on their broccoli crop in a single season. 

 I do not guarantee these figures, but two facts which 

 soon become obvious to an inquirer in the district are : 



(1) That the personal equation counts for much ; and, 



(2) that there are plenty of people who have confidence 

 in the industry, judging from the important dimensions 

 it has assumed, and the substantial expansion it is still 

 undergoing. 



According to the returns of the Board of Agriculture, 

 the acreage under cabbage in Great Britain in 1905 was 

 67,758, as against 64,607 in 1904, showing an increase 

 of 3,151 acres planted in the one year, or an in- 

 crease of no fewer than 29,055 acres as compared with 

 1895. Of the average in 1904, Essex occupied the 

 premier position with 5,259 acres, followed by Kent 

 with 4,601 acres, six counties with over 2,000 acres 

 each, and seventeen with between 1,000 and 2,000 

 acres. 



Inasmuch as, when properly grown, from 20 to 35 

 tons of cabbages per acre should be produced, the above 

 figures convey some idea of the magnitude of the cabbage 

 output in the United Kingdom. Taking the acreage for 

 1905, and allowing 20 tons of cabbages per acre, the 

 cabbage crop for the year should be 1,355,000 tons. 



