"Spider" wrote in message
...

snip

Yes, David and Sacha, I seem to remember him mentioning that, but I don't
think it was his primary use. He really knew what he was doing and was
glad to use it. I think he missed it when central heating became the
norm.

--
Spider

All this talk of soot awakened something in the 'race memory'. At the end of
the last war (WW2) we had an allotment and were all 'Digging for victory'.
Soot
was in great demand for the cultivation of onions and I have just got out
one of
Father's bibles - 'The New Vegetable Grower's Handbook' by Arthur J. Simons
published in 1945 in which he says about soot - 'So far as Onions are
concerned,
there is no finer nitrogenous fertiliser than household soot at least a year
old,
applied in February at the rate of 8ozs per saquare yard.'

So there you are, my memories of piles of soot, weathering at the end of
each plot were correct.

Phil