SWEETENING SOIL BY STEAM.

Northern Advocate, 3 September 1919, Page 4

SWEETENING SOIL BY STEAM.

A GREAT DISCOVERY FOR MARKET GARDENERS.

One of the biggest peace booms is in the glasshouse industry. During the war many of the big growers of. grapes and tomatoes had to suspend operations owing to labour and fuel troubles, but now they are all getting to work again.

The most wonderful collection of glass-houses in the United Kingdom is to seen along the Lea Valley, especially near Waltham Cross, Before thu war the area was increasing by forty or fifty acres yearly. Our climate (says an English paper) is specially suited for growing under glass, and it will probably be news to most pec pie that the Lea Valky growers were accustomed in the past to send roses to Paris and peaches to New York.

The main trouble which the owners of glasshouses have to contend against is disease. Every year the brick and woodwork must be freshly whitewashed, and up to a comparatively recent date it was the custom to turn out all used soil and bring in fresh.

Then a discovery was made which was the means of effecting a most amazing economy. It was that used soil could be sterilised and made sweet by a process of steaming.

Portable steam boilers of 10 to 14 horse-power are used, which drive steam through long pipes into tho houses. The nozzles of the pipes are buried deep into the soil, and the intensely hot steam destroys not only all insect life, but also those microbes which are such a pest to the grower of cucumbers or tomatoes.

Soil is also sterilised before being brought into the house. It is placed in great boxes, each holding two cartloads, and steam turned on. It takes only twenty minutes to purify a boxful.

Soil which formerly lasted one season only can now, by being steamed, be made to do duty seven or ev«n ten times over.