HOT-HOUSE INDUSTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21403, 30 January 1933, Page 4

HOT-HOUSE INDUSTRY

REVIVAL IN BRITAIN TARIFF AND ITS RESULTS Towns of glass are springing up in since the imposition of the tariff on foreign hot-house products. Experts estimate that there is a market of the value of £30,000,000 open to the enterprise.

In the Lea Valley, the largest glasshouse district in Britain, which depends almost solely on hothouse produce, there ore 1500 acres of land under glass, says the Sunday Express. Tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, mushrooms, early strawberries and raspberries are the chief fruits being cultivated. More than £200,000 is invested in the industry in that district alone.

It costs between £3OOO and £4OOO to put an acre under glass. There is employment for six men on every acre—ten times the number employed in ordinary farming. It is estimated that out of every £IOO spent on hothouse development £BO is spent in other industries. ' The glasshouse industry in the Worthing district, which has existed since the sixteenth century, but which dwindled to a twentieth of its former size after the war, is being revived. There are now more than 44 miles of greenhouses in the sheltered part of the South Downs -'near Worthing. The capital outlay represents i more than £1,000,000, and the animal turnover is about £500,000.

Approximately a million packages of fruit and vegetables are despatched from the Worthing district every year, and the amount paid to the railway companies annually for carriage exceeds £20,000. All the industrial centres of Britain consume one or oth(/r of the products from this area. It includes fresh figs, tomatoes, grapes, nectarines, peaches, marrows, beans and encumbers. During 1931 more than 18,000.0001b. of foreign-grown hothouse grapes were imported. Although no figures of the effect of the 3d a pound tariff are yet available, it is known that the imports have been considerably diminished.

A new enterprise has been formed to exploit the Worthing hothouse grape industry. This company will eventually have 100 acres under glass, employing 600 men. /An output of 250,0001b. of grapes a year, or £19,000, is anticipated. In Lanarkshire, another large glasshouse district, more than 20 miles of glasshouses , have been added in the last two years Early strawberries, raspberries, plums and other fruits are grown, most of which are canned. This year the district had the best on record.

Other areas where many acres of new hothouses have been erected since the tariff are the Holland division of Lincolnshire and the marshland district of Norfolk. Soft fruits are being grown there, and the market is proving to be good. The figure of £5,000,000 is mentioned as the fresh capital put into the industry since the tariff. This figure, however, •would not include the money spent in other trades. There is work for carpenters and glaziers in' erecting and maintaining the houses, work for people distributing the produce, work making the chips and boxes in which it is packed, and work for coal mines. Oil he-iting for glasshouses is now being developed. . '*■: ■ ■: .Vi 7 ,; •