POINTS ABOUT CHARCOAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1939, Page 3

POINTS ABOUT CHARCOAL

EFFECT ON SOUR SOIL. It seems strange that charcoal is not used in gardens to the extent that its merits and capabilities warrant. Powdered charcoal is sometimes advised as a surface dusting for seedpans as a deterrent to damping off, or to prevent the formation of mosses and lichens on the surface. These are but a fraction of the utility of charcoal, and a fuller realisation of its merits would surely

f r * • result in charcoal burning as an industry. The sweetening effects in soured soil are remarkable and of long duration. Decomposition of buried charcoal is almost as slow as that of cinders, and j every particle has great absorption powers, bottling up much gaseous vapour that is poisonous to plant roots. Charcoal is one of the best opening agents for stiff clays and heavy loams. The coarser the grade within reason, the greater its utility in this direction. It is scarcely too much to claim that any kind of soil will derive some benefit by a dressing of charcoal sufficient to strew the surfacce thickly before digging commences. Likewise, granulated or powdered charcoal would do a vast amount of good in all potting and propagating composts if used at the same rate- as is usually advised for the sand. Of special importance to gardeners is the fact that charcoal is made from bones as well as from wood. Bone charcoal has far the more value for us, because in addition to its capability of ' doing all that wood charcoal does, if has valuable manurial properties of its own, being rich in phosphates. True, these phosphates are slow in liberation. It may, however, be added, that the ; release going on slowly, lasts for a : greater length of time. For that reason, bone charcoal has exceptional use in vine borders, around the roots of . fruit trees, in beds where rhododeni drons are grown, and for flowering i shrubs and all other subjects of a per- [ manent nature. . Few things are of greater value than bone charcoal where roses are con- . cerned, and it proves a valuable aid to ■ the production of exhibition chrysani themum blooms, if incorporated in the ; compost some time before use.