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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



manui'ed, and the manure does no good. Pai-t of the 

 dropping? was swept up and sold; but it often struck us 

 that with a little management and a little more chemi- 

 cal knowledge, a considerable manufacture of guano 

 might have been carried on there. But enough of 

 the birds ; let us see what can be done with the fishes. 

 A very considerable portion of the sprats, herrings, and 

 pilchards caught on our coasta are now consumed as 

 manure within a short distancey as the noses of those 

 who have the misfortune to live in the neighbourhood 

 of the fisheries can abundantly testify. It is testified 

 also not unfrequently by the fevers which it engenders. 

 Objections have been raised on (his score against the 

 employment of town sewage to be pumped on the land. 

 The fact, however, is that the stench arising from that 

 cause is transient and tolerable, compared with that 

 arising from sprats, herrings, pilchards, star fish or five- 

 fingers, mussels, and whale blubber. We are a strange, 

 inconsistent people. There is no nuisance too glaring to 

 be tolerated, provided only it has received the sanction 

 ofantiquity ; while tlierc are no bounds to the indignation 

 which is excited by one of far less enormity, with youth 

 on its side. We have alluded to the star fish and 

 mussels caught for manure. The dredging for tliem 

 aftbrds a subsistence to the " free dredgers" of some of 

 the oyster burrows of the estuary of the Thames when 

 from mismanagement the oyster-beds have become un- 

 stocked, or it is not the season for dredging them. The 

 taking of star fish servos a double purpose. It not 

 only supplies the farmers witli manure, and the dredgers 

 with employment, but it destroys one of the greatest 

 enemies of the oyster, devoured in considerable 

 quantities by the star fish. They thrust their mail- 

 covered arms between the valves when open, and feast 

 on the poor oyster, who would otherwise be swal- 

 lowed by that insatiable and omnivorous consumer — 

 man. Another enemy of the oyster, with whom the 

 dredgers wage war, is the whelk. Like all those mol- 

 luscs which have a canal to their shells, the whelk 

 bores a hole in the shells of other molluscs, and de- 

 vours them. The frequenters of our watering-places 

 must often have obsei-ved dead shells with these 

 holes bored in them. The scientific name of these 

 star fish is asteridce, and we would recommend to our 

 readers the perusal of that beautifully illustrated work 

 " The British Asteridse," by the late Edward Forbes. 

 Forbes was a great dredger. It was not, however, to 

 obtain star fish or molluscs for manure, but to ascertain 

 the different marine species characteristic of different 

 zones of depth, and the depth at which marine life 

 ceases. There is a pearl fishery in Wales, at the mouth 

 of the Conway. It has been celebrated for its pearls 

 since the days of the Romans, and more celobrattd in 

 Roman days than the present. The pearls of the Con- 

 way are derived from two different genera of molluscs : 

 the one a freshwater, iinio — nnio vutrgaratiferous, 

 producing large pearls ; the other, mytilus cdulis, the 

 common marine edible mussel. The pearls afforded by 

 the former are few, and of the largest size. The unio 

 in the Scottish rivers has also yielded pearls. The 

 greater portion of the Welsh pearls were derived from 



the mytilus edulis. They were all bought up by one 

 person, and the use to which they were applied, and 

 how they were dispossd of in London, was involved in 

 mystery. Some accounts said they were ground down 

 to form the body of rouge for ladies' faces; others, that 

 they were used in the manufacture of glass beads in imi- 

 tation of pearls. But what, it may be asked, has the 

 fishery for pearls to do with agriculture and manure ? 

 The collecting of these pearls furnished employment to 

 a number of women and children, who obtained remu- 

 nerative wages from it. The mussels, when collected, 

 were boiled on the beach. The boiled mass was woU 

 stirred, and the pearls were collected fi'om the bottum 

 of the boiler, while the shells and the bodies of the 

 animals, with their ammonia and their phosphates, 

 were left upon the beach. This was the state of things 

 some twenty years ago, when the first box of guano was 

 imported into Liverpool. Whether the pearl fishery is 

 still in existence we know not, nor, if it is, whether this 

 source of manure is still wasted. It will be strange, in 

 thesb days of agricultural progress, if there is not some 

 purchaser of guano within reach of this waste. There 

 arc plenty of mussel-banks on our shores, which, if 

 they do not yield pearls, will at any rate yield manure, 

 as they do to the dredgers of the oyster-beds of the 

 Thames. Then again, on the Cromer coast, tlio aged 

 fishermen, who are too much advanced in life for the 

 hardships of the fisheries in the ofirng, derive, or did de- 

 rive, a subsistence by catching dog fish, which the farmers 

 purchase for iDanure. This was the ease ten years back, 

 but we believe the facility with which guano has been 

 procured of late has suppressed this branch of domestic 

 industry. Perhaps the dearness of the exotic manure 

 may cause a revival of it, and an extension of the em- 

 ployment to other parts of the coast. Then, again, 

 the refuse of our fishing towns — what becomes of 

 that ? Who that has spent a summer at one of our 

 watering-places has not smelt the heads and the offal 

 and the refuse fish thrown away on the beach? What 

 becomes of the refuse fish of all kinds v/hich is caught 

 in the offing 1 There is but one answer, thrown over- 

 board. Could it not be made worth while to remu- 

 nerate the fishermen for bringing it to the land ? The 

 great objection to all these supplies of fish manure 

 has hitherto been that they are only available near the 

 coast; and that there, in the way they are employed at 

 present, they are a great nuisance as far as regards 

 olfactory and sanitary conditions. But can no means 

 be devised of abating the nuisance and rendering them 

 portable? With respect to sprats. Professor Way pro- 

 posed to render them available for distant transport by 

 extracting their oil and pressing them into cakes. Why 

 should not fish be salted for manure as well as for food ? 

 The refuse salt from the herring curing-houses of Yar- 

 mouth is purchased by the farmers of the district for 

 manure. In conclusion, we would suggest to some 

 of those who are so anxious to deodorize the sewage of 

 towns, and to convert it into a solid and portable 

 manure, that they have a nmch more promising field 

 opened to them in deodorising our fish refuse and 

 refuse fish, and rendering them portable to greater 



