338 THE JOUKNAL OP BOTANY 



wonder that the kelp industry, was nearly killed, and can never be 

 revived on such ill-proportioned terms. The landlord claimed the 

 sea-weed as his own ; and as the sward on which the whole was 

 dried prior to burning was his, his income from the whole transaction 

 was greatly increased. Twenty tons of fresh sea-weed produced one 

 ton of kelp. On the shores of Deer sound, where the waters are well 

 sheltered, there are still to be seen two score or more kilns where kelp 

 used to be burned half a century ago. No weeds of any kind but 

 Fucacece are available, and these had to be first cut with sharp hooks, 

 and then carried to the sward, showing that early kelpers preferred 

 these. The plants then used were Fucus vesictdosus, Ascopliyllum 

 nodosum, F. serratus, Alai'ia esculenfa, Laminaria saccharina, and 

 in addition the fronds of L. Clonsfoni. More salts it is said were 

 obtained from the same amount of Fucacece than from the tangles 

 {Laminar iacecB) . Tangles too were more difficult to dr}^ and when 

 dried, to burn. Dried Fucacece are sufficiently inflammable to burn 

 f reeh^ and vitrefy the mass of kelp ; but tangles unless thoroughly 

 dried, which it is difficult to do except in hot weather, require coals, 

 which are expensive in Orkney, and this required a specially con- 

 structed kiln. Kelp-burning is now reduced to a mere fraction of its 

 former quantities. 



II. The utilization of Brown Sea-weeds as food for man in this 



country goes back to remote times, but is always the expression of an 



enfeebled condition of agriculture, and a means of maintaining 



existence under immediate pressure of starvation ; as in the west of 



Ireland during the famine years. Nor does the cultivation of 



Laminaria in Japan, and its exjDort to China, appear in any moi^e 



favourable light, owing to the extremely low food-value of the 



material. Kecords for the utilization of Laminaria saccharina, 



L. Jlexicaulis, and Alaria esculenta are really but few, thovigh 



these are emphasized in works on British marine algae in the hope of 



contributing to the importance of the subject. Thus Johnson in his 



edition of Gerard's Herhall (1633) records that Laminaria was 



eaten boiled with milk by fishermen at Margate; but in England 



improved methods of agriculture had given a better food-supply, and 



even then the custom was probably a survival as a matter of taste 



and convenience. In works on algae of the early nineteenth century 



the idea is conveyed that Alaria was commonly sold and eaten in 



Scotland, and references are taken from McNeill (Lightfoot, Turner, 



Landsborough, Greville, Hai-vey). But the first mention of the fact 



is by Caspar Bauhin in his Prodromus (Basle, 1620), who had 



received plants and information from Cargill of Aberdeen some 



years before (1603). His remarks that " Baderlacks " were in season 



in September were religiously copied by subsequent writers for two 



hundred j^ears, although the practice had fallen into oblivion. The 



food-value of the plants themselves is never more than that of hay, 



and the reproductive organs are the only parts at all digestible. 



Colloidal cellulose tissiies, of uniform texture, give out little but salts, 



even on indefinite boiling. Sugars are wanting, though mannite is 



present in L. saccharina. Other reserves as colloidal polysaccharides 



are wholly indiffusible, except after grinding the material. No 



