GROWN UNDER PAPER

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1928, Page 8

GROWN UNDER PAPER

A NEW CURE FOR WEEDS.

Writing in tho “Scientific American,” Milton Wrigbt says that he thinks we may grow all our crops under paper before long. His conclusion is based on the success of this method in Hawaii. Tho pineapple growers . of that, territory last year paid £lOO,OOO for paper under which to grow pmeapnles. The growers raise 30 per cent, more pineapples than they otherwise would—and there is a. tremendous saving in labour. He goes on. "Without any great stretch of the ini’ agination we can see the day when nearly all our plants —potatoes, corn, tomatoes, spinach, cotton, and no t—will be grown under paper. To understand the use of paper in agriculture, suppose we go back to its origin. On a sugar plantation near Honolulu before tho World War, Charles F. Eckart. found it a stupendous task to keep down the weeds. Yeai aftei yeai he had been heaping crop refuse between the rows —mulching is the term farmers use _f O r the double purpose _of blanketing the weeds and retarding the evaporation of moisture. The mulch would decompose after a time and actually encourage the weeds. If only Eckart could find a mulch that would control the weeds permanently he would be making a tremendous stride forward. At last he hit upon a tough kind of paper. The sharp shoots of the young plants easily stabbed their way through, but the weeds were smothered. The idea grew. The use ol black paper, it was found, raised the. temperature of the soil. The activity of bacteria was increased. The moisture remained in the ground until it was absorbed by the plant, roots instead of being wasted quickly by evaporation. Then, too, the paper preserved tho original cultivation of the soil throughout tho growing period. With one unused to mulch paper the thought is likely to occur that rains would be prevented from reaching the soil under the paper. The fact is that the water reaches the soil through the openings where the plantings are made or between the edges of the paper, and seeping downwards or sideways is stored up under the blanketing effect of mulch paper. One thing made clear by the experiments is that not only are crops more abundant, but they are earlier. In many.cases this affords the possibility of an additional planting before the growing season is ended.”