A Festival of Horticulture
I see that market gardeners are to have a produce-show at Olympia on June 27th. I hope it will remind the public that these people con- tribute about £120 million to the wealth of Britain, in fruit, vegetables and flowers. Much capital is invested in this industry, for it costs £15,000 to put up an acre of glass, and there are 5,000 acres of glass-houses, frames and cloches in England and Wales. Only keen growers and gardeners know the night-and-day attention that is needed in glass- houses. Those who do not live in them should not indeed throw stones at the members of this threatened industry.. I call it threatened because of the baleful diseases and pests that lie in wait for greenstuff grown in a confined space. And further—but I dare not venture into polities— I think of the lack of subsidies and guaranteed prices, and the hitter foreign competition. That threat cannot be treated with derris-dust!
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