5 MARCH 1932, Page 13

In so strange a succession of seasons as we have

experienced —a soaking summer, a hot winter giving place to frosty winds from North and East and a long drought—the Cornish farmer has had his difficulties and his losses. His scheme of work is spoilt by the earliness of the crops, and frost has had its victims. One cause of loss is the preference of the consumer for a snow-white broccoli. It is little more reasonable than his preference for a bleached flour. The newly imported Roseolf variety (though it has done much for the industry and a debt is owed to the great seedsman who introduced it) is less hardy than the old yellowish Cornish broccoli and, perhaps, less agreeable to the taste. It suffered severely from frost that did the robuster native no harm at all. The experience is another illustration of the maxim that the fortune of the pro- ducer lies on the palate of the consumer.

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