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204 THE CORNWALL COAST advantage in his efforts to undersell the Briton, and the Briton, though fighting at home, fights with one hand tied behind. Fishing at Scilly was long in a precarious state, but is now a little better, owing to the use of steam-drifters. The isles are too far from the markets, but by catching the boat to Penzance the fishermen can now get their fish away in most cases before it has had time to spoil. With mackerel, the most profitable catch, this is very important, as the mackerel so speedily deteriorates ; but a good deal of the fishery that takes place off the Scillies is not in the hands of Scillonians — Cornishmen, East Anglians, foreigners, all compete. With regard to flowers Scilly seems more happily placed, though to some extent the same difficulties apply — the distance, the cost of carriage, the competition of the untaxed foreigner. The story has been often told — how, rather more than thirty years since, W. Trevellick, of Rocky Hill, St. Mary's, sent a few bunches of narcissi in a hamper to Covent Garden as a venture, and was astonished at the return they brought him. These were simply " Scilly Whites," which had been growing wild about the cottages without any one hitherto dreaming of their financial possibilities. The knowledge of a demand soon roused the supply ; new species were cultivated, everything was done to ensure early flowering, the more sensitive kinds were protected by wattle-fences and hedges of escalonia or veronica ; and from January till May every steamer to the mainland carries tons of blooms. A ton of flowers is some- thing rather spacious ; and in the height of the season as many as thirty tons are taken in one boatload. The more severe the weather on the