CORRESPONDENCE

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1935, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE

MYTH OF OVER-PRODUCTION. (To the Editor.) Sir.—As an example of the potential fruitfulness of the earth, Holly Lodge Farm, Walton-on-Thames, may be cited. The farm consists of 187 acres of which 165 acres are now in intensive cultivation. One acre is under grass ami three acres are under frames for early lettuce, etc. The seakale beds, traversed by an underground hot-water system, extend to about oneeighth of an acre. The whole farm has been redrained so as to lower the winter water-table 4-Gft. below the surface. The irrigation system, with its own well and pumps, covers 125 acres, requiring 24 miles of pipes. No other agricultural enterprise of this kind in Great Britain can show an equal intensity of cultivation, with its wage bill of £62 per acre and its output of £142 per acre. Mr. Secret!, the owner of Holly Lodge Farm and a pioneer in his special line, is always willing to instruct others. At the present time he has taken on fourteen young men to gain experience by his methods.- They pay no premium and receive the ordinary wages. Once a week Mr. Secrett lectures to them and explains his whole procedure. In passing it may be mentioned that at the time our advices left London (February 9) the Metropolitan Water Board was promoting a Bill in Parliament for the purpose of acquiring this outstanding example of intensive cultivation, eliminating the farm and making a storage reservoir! With scientific handling, Mother Earth shows herself still capable of yielding abundance for every creature resting upon her broad and capacious bosom. That supply may appear in one quarter of the globe and demand in another is of very little import, in view of the provision science has made for transit. Sea transport is admittedly slow, but nowadays that is not a matter of vital concern, for seagoing storage and packing are being brought to perfection. For instance, Mr. R. G. Tomkins, of the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, has been investigating the possibilities of using iodised coverings for fruit when placed in storage and packing. The severity of many fungal diseases of storage is notorious and the use of germicidal coverings would appear to be one the most obvious methods of control. Initial difficulties appear to have been largely overcome. The iodised wraps are made by treating tissue paper with a definite volume of iodine solution. Laboratory tests show that storage and package rots of fruit can be considerably reduced by this kind of wrapping, whilst the appearance and ripening of most varieties are not impaired. The Report of the British Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, published in February, records a definite advance during 1934 in the application of gasstorage to shipments of meat from New Zealand and other Dominions and states that a modified method of stowage has been developed which promises to be effective and economical. Add to this the fact that the greater part of the world’s mercantile marine is composed of cargo boats and that carriage by sea is the cheapest of all forms of transport, and all possible argument against a more humanitarian distribution of the world’s production of food vanishes into thin air.—l am, SILENT PETEE