184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



there has not been an item of seed put on this ground for the last 

 ten years, and was what is called old •worn out land. 



In connection with this topic, is added the following, on 



Sea Weed. 



By S. P. Majberry, Cape Elizabeth. 



"We farmers have a great and growing antipathy to the term u-eed, 

 and cannot help coming to the belief that the lexicographers were 

 not following their own nose when they defined weed as an herb 

 "noxious or useless," (another lexicographer better defines'a weed 

 to be "a plant out of place," and what are usually termed sea-weeds, 

 "would be more properly called Marine plants. Ed.) as we appre- 

 hend such an anomaly as a weed, in the sense entertained by them, 

 had no place in nature. The farmer comes to a different conclusion, 

 and would define a weed as an agent for gathering, arranging, and 

 storing up matter below the reach of, and intangible to, animal and 

 the higher grades of vegetable life, thus fulfilling a great and mighty 

 end in the scheme of creation — the gathering together of the stray 

 substances which amid nature's varied manufactures has, as it were, 

 slipped through her fingers, and would have run to waste, and con- 

 verting them, by sure and certain processes, into tangible com- 

 pounds. 



In the article of sea weeds, we are particularly struck with the 

 economy of nature, in singularly adapting the means to the end. 

 The ofiice of these plants is to collect the stray substances held in 

 solution by salt water, particularly the alkalies and phosphates, and 

 as these have to be extracted from the water, not from the earth 

 beneath it, the plants have no roots, properly speaking, but simply 

 processes for clinging to hard and flinty rocks, as points of attach- 

 ment ; while at the same time, in place of a firm and erect stem to 

 keep the branches and leaves expanded, as terrestrial plants, and 

 which would be cumbrous and unhandy for plants which change 

 these mediums as often and as regularly as the tides, they are fur- 

 nished with innumerable air bags, or vessels for accomplishing this 

 purpose, so that the branches and leaves of the plant may come in 

 contact with the greatest possible quantity of water consistent with 



