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NOTES AND QUERIES
These investigations showed that yields in these places appear generally to have little bearing on the prices paid by tenant farmers when reaching an agreement with their prospective landlords. Other factors arise which discount yield on the basis of kuk produced by any one tau chung of land. If, for example, as in one case, an area is inhabited by a very tight, closely knit clan, which keeps to itself and discourages outsiders (even from the next village) from entering its lands or its village, this lessens the competition for their land and the low tenant rent reflects this community spirit in its affairs. On the other hand, an area whose owners keep their land wide open to the highest bidder, without restriction, attracts large numbers of immigrant farmers whose entry has raised tenant rentals to well above average. Some areas have special problems. One border area is largely low-lying padi, protected from the sea by a strip of marsh-land and subject to flooding during the rainy season. Cultivation presents problems familiar to the local people but ruinous to outsiders. The rent paid shows this trend. As a last example of outside factors affecting tenant rentals, large tracts of former padi fields in a locality quite close to the urban areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong have now been converted to the growing of flowers. These blooms fetch good prices in the city and are always in demand. Consequently, rentals are high.
To summarise, it appears that the main factor in fixing a tenant rental is not so much yield but market opportunities and freedom from restrictions.
Since 1950, the immigrant farmer has become very important in the New Territories and is primarily concerned in vegetable cultivation as it pays higher profits. He has to work harder, as there is no slack season as with padi farming. With the encouragement of Government, these farmers have formed themselves into groups, dependent generally on locality and have registered themselves as cooperative societies. These groups enjoy the benefits of the Government wholesale market and transport facilities at cost less 10%, which is much better than going through a middleman. As hillside land is less easy to cultivate, the vegetable farmer seeks to acquire low-lying paddy fields and converts them into vegetable plots for which he pays a higher price than his predecessor in the tenancy, the former padi farmer.