BOOM IN GLASSHOUSES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17919, 25 October 1932, Page 7

BOOM IN GLASSHOUSES

BRITISH TARIFF’S EFFECT ' £30,000,000 MARKET OPEN « , • LONDON, Sept. 1. ' There is every indication that the lead given by the Tariff Advisory .CoJnmittee in placing duties on foreign 'horticultural produce and in making them permanent is meeting with a great response from market gardeners. Hundreds of acres of new glasshouses aro being erected, and old ones that had fallen into dilapidation in the •had old times of unrestricted foreign dumping.are being renovated. No exact figures exist, but the Ministry of Agriculture’s inspectors report big increases everywhere, particularly in Lancashire aud Cheshire, where the local authorities arc doing all they can to encourage the raising locally of tho produce the foreigner used to send us. In Scotland, one Stirlingshire farmer'who previously used no glass at all has put up seven houses each 100 yards long and is selling two tons of .tomatoes a day. He could sell double the qnantity. . , The figure of £3,000,000 is freely mentioned as the fresh capital that, is .being invested in developing this industry. -It is only a guess, but any one who has travelled recently in the Blackpool district, through the Lea .Valley, West Sussex, Middlesex, and .Cambridgeshire cannot have failed, to .notice how. much fresh glass is being icr&ctcd. Tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, mushrooms, French beans, early strawberries, and cut flowers are the chief crops that are 'being cultivated, and a ■ market up to some £30,000,000 is open •to this new enterprise. At present we have about 3500 acres ujider glass in Britain, with from £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 invested in it, The cost of covering an acre with glass is about £3OOO. The tariffs have put new life into the 'lndustry, and the opportunities created for fresh employment are very great. The glasshouse industry is a heavy employer of labor. About six men to the acre, or 10 times the number need,ed for ordinary farming, arc employed. There is also work for carpenters and glasfcers in erecting and maintaining the houses, work for people distributing the produce and making the chips and boxes in which it is packed, and last but not least, work for the coal mines. ■Glasshouses are heavy consumers of coal, and even the pre-tariff glasshouse acreage consumed about 600,000 tons of coal annually for heating purposes.