THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



Vol. XVIII. No. 10. 



JANUARY, 1912. 



PARTIAL STERILISATION OF SOIL FOR 

 GLASSHOUSE WORK. 



E.J. Russell, D.Sc, and F. R. Petherbridge, B.A. 



Rothamsted Experimental Station. 



Partial Sterilisation and What it Does. 



The grower under glass, working against time and season, 

 is' compelled to make every condition as favourable as 

 possible for his plants. He maintains by artificial means a 

 proper temperature and water supply, he does his best to 

 secure adequate light, and he uses such soils and manures as 

 are best suited to the crops he is growing. He soon finds, 

 however, that his particular crop is not the only thing his 

 soil brings forth ; the warmth, moisture and food that he 

 so liberally supplies also encourage a host of other living 

 things : woodlice, centipedes, millipedes, white worms, 

 springtails, eelworms, and scores of fungi ; and he may even 

 have the mortification of finding that his own crop fares 

 very badly through the activity of these parasites, the roots 

 being invaded by eelworms, the stems and leaves by parasitic 

 fungi, and the fruits by various disease organisms. Before 

 very long his soil may be so infested with the germs of all 

 these undesirables that it is little better than a deathtrap for 

 his plants, and has therefore to be thrown out. , 



Many of these difficulties would vanish if all life could be 

 destroyed in the soil, the manure, the chinks and crevices of 

 the house, &c, leaving the crop as the only living thing. 

 Growth under these simple conditions, however, although 

 realisable in a scientific laboratory, is commercially impos- 

 sible, because it now becomes a more difficult and expensive 



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