  Let $X$ be a compact toric variety. Let $Hol$ denote the space of based
holomorphic maps from $CP^1$ to $X$ which lie in a fixed homotopy class. Let
$Map$ denote the corresponding space of continuous maps. We show that $Hol$ has
the same homotopy groups as $Map$ up to some (computable) dimension. The proof
uses a description of $Hol$ as a space of configurations of labelled points,
where the labels lie in a partial monoid determined by the fan of $X$.
