A Glasshouse College

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 775, 23 September 1929, Page 8

A Glasshouse College

FINDING . WORK FOR YOUTHS

THOSE who have faith in New Zealand as a fruit-producing country will display interest in an experiment in Fhigland with the first glasshouse growing college, which is sponsored by the Government, and which is to be conducted for demonstration as well as for profit-earning purposes.

Scholarship schemes in commercial orchard work for boys and girls are arranged, and all the big fruit-growing centres will be fed by the qualified students.

This technical college is now being built at the Hertfordshire Institute of Agriculture, where students will learn the cultivation of peaches, vines and bedding plants, as well as large scale commercial production of tomatoes. The area of glass for the. unique training centre will extend to one and a quarter acres. There are to be five vinery type houses, five “airplane” type, 200 ft houses for the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers, and packing sheds and frames. The glasshouses will cost £6,000. and it is with the aid of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Hertfordshire County Council that the new scheme is to be put into operation. It is intended to run the new establishment on strictly commercial lines so that the plant will work as a demonstration as well as a profit-earning department. Modest Training Fees There are not enough men with specialised knowledge of the industry for its development, and young men with capital who intend to be growers, or those who enter as workers to rise to managerial positions, will take a full year’s course, the first of which it to start next month. To link up education and research, periodical visits will be paid each year to the Cheshunt Research Station—a Government institution where Dr. W. F. Bewley and his scientific staff investigate all the vitality problems of the plants, and which was set up originally and supported financially by the growers. The students’ fees will be very modest, and scholarship schemes for the sons and daughters of agricultural workers are also offered. This new enterprise is not to be confined to Hertfordshire, but is for all the great glasshouse centres—Worthing, Guernsey, East Sussex, North West Kent, the Thames Valley and Norfolk.

One of the largest and most important fruit-growing centres to be served from this college is -the Lea Valley, where there are 575 acres of tomato glasshouses alone, producing 35,000 tons, valued at £1,400,000. Cucumbers occupy 275 acres of glass, with a total production of 15.000 tons, valued at £700,000, and grapes come third on the list with 75-acres of glasshouse accommodation, in which 5,000,000 bunches are grown, worth £200,000.” Glasshouse production as a factor in commercial orchard enterprise in New Zealand is by no means unimportant, though the greater part of the experiments which have led to successful production of tomatoes and other plants in glasshouses has been accomplished by the Agricultural Department in conjunction with the growers. More Orchard Production There are 900 glasshouses in the Dominion used for tomatoes, table grapes and a few other lines of fruit which can be grown successfully under glass. Moreover, the growth of commercial orchards in New Zealand has been of such a nature that sound training of students in glasshouse production seems almost certain to be justified by the results. It is true that today there are 10,000 acres less under commercial orchards than there were ten years ago, but this drop is more than accounted for by the fact that a great deal of the non-bearing orchard land has been discarded for fruit-growing, and the bearing orchard area has increased in that period by over 4,000 acres. , In paying particular attention to the agricultural inclination of New Zealand youths, the Education and Agricultural authoritie would probably secure a gratifying return from investment in a glasshouse college on a modified scale, but properly equipped with facilities for commercial orchard training.