SECRETARY'S REPORT. 'QQ 



mention wliicli is made in a communication from Mr. 0. W. Her- 

 rick of Brooklin, a shore town in Hancock county, of the remark- 

 able success which has attended the application of "poggy chum," 

 both as a top-dressing for grass lands, and as an ingredient in com- 

 posts. 



In answer to an inquiry respecting this article, he informs me 

 that the fish known as menhaden, and often called along shore 

 "hard-heads" and "poggies," are taken, by means of nets, in large 

 numbers, and after being boiled, are pressed by screw-power to ex- 

 tract an oil which sells readily in Boston and other markets, at from 

 fifteen to eighteen dollars per barrel ; what remains after extract- 

 ing the oil, is called " poggy chum," and sells at twenty cents per 

 barrel ; two barrels are equal to a load (forty -eight cubic feet, or 

 three-eighths of a cord,) of farm yard manure; one hundred of 

 these fish yield a gallon of oil — four hundred give a barrel of 

 chum. Sometimes a man and a boy, besides carrying on a small 

 farm, catch fish enough during the season to make .fifteen to twenty 

 barrels of oil, and one hundred to one hundred and fifty barrels of 

 chum. Occasionally enough are taken in a night to make a barrel 

 of oil — at other times none for several days. Mr. H. farther informs 

 me that some farms in that vicinity which six years ago cut only 

 five tons of hay, yielded thirty tons the present year, and this large 

 increase is wholly attributable to the application of "poggy chum." 



That this may be found as profitable a business at many other 

 points on our coast, as at Brooklin, seems highly probable, and I am 

 informed that it is rapidly attracting increased attention. Mr. H. 

 remarks : "in our town of about two hundred voters, there are over 

 fifty employed in this business." Poggy chum, it should be recol- 

 lected, is only one of the thousand forms in which the treasures of 

 the deep may be made to enrich the farmer. These have never 

 hitherto been duly appreciated. Not only in the form above named, 

 but as salt muck, sea-weed, kelp, muscle-bed, and many others now 

 known, together with the probability of still other forms yet to be 

 discovered, they are, beyond all question, a rich provision placed by 

 a beneficent Providence within the reach of all cultivators of the 

 soil near the sea shore, and which, it is well known, is generally 

 inferior in natural fertility to that of the interior. 



The first settlers were drawn hither by the facilities for fishing, 



