278 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



shores by the action of the waves are collected throughout the je-AY and 

 especially during stormy weather, furnishing emplojnnent to a large 

 proportion of the inhabitants of Guernsey and Jersey. They are 

 applied to the land not only in a green state, as in this countrj^, but 

 are also burned on the beach and on the cottage hearths and the ashes 

 used as fertilizer. 



Large quantities of seaw^eeds are also burned on the coast of France, 

 especially in Brittanj^ and Normandy, and on the coasts of Ireland 

 and Scotland. In this process the plants are usually treated for the 

 obtainment of iodine and salts of potassium and sodium, leaving the 

 potash salts as the principal fertilizing agent. Although greatly 

 reduced, owing to the production of iodine from South American 

 caliche, the quantity of iodine made from the ashes of seaweeds is 

 yet very large. The ashes of seaweeds are not used as fertilizer to 

 any great extent, if at all, in this country, owing to the fact that, in 

 burning, the valuable nitrogen is driven off and lost. However, for 

 use at a greater distance than 12 or 15 miles from the coast it might 

 be found practicable to burn them if this can be done with a small 

 expenditure. 



Several unsuccessful attempts have been made in this country to 

 establish a profitable business in preparing commercial fertilizer from 

 seaweeds. About thirty years ago a factory was built for this purjjose 

 at Boothbaj^, Me. Dried seaweeds were ground in a mill formed of 40 

 circular saws, 20 having teeth and 20 without. These were placed 

 alternately on an iron shaft and so adjusted as to revolve in a concave 

 trough fitted with 40 steel plates. The shaft weighed 1,000 pounds 

 and made upward of 2,000 revolutions per minute. With this aj^pa- 

 ratus 3 tons per hour of the thoroughly dried seaweeds could be 

 reduced to about the fineness of oats. There proved to be an insuffi- 

 cient market for the fertilizer, and its manufacture was discontinued 

 in a few years. « Most of it was sold in Connecticut for the use of 

 tobacco-growers. The average price at the factory for the i)repared 

 material was about $8 per ton. 



Notwithstanding its relativelj'^ large content of nitrogen, phosplioric 

 acid, and potash, as revealed by chemical analysis, eelgrass is of very 

 little value as a fertilizer, owing to the difficulty in making those 

 constituents available. According to Storer's well-known work on 

 fertilizers (pp. 1G7-1G8, vol. 2) : 



Eelgrass taken by itself has little or no fertilizing power. It will hardly rot 

 anywhere, either in the ground, in the hogsty, or in the luaunro or compost heap. 

 It is a distinctly inconvenient thing, moreover, to have in the way of the plow- 

 share or the dungfork. It has long stood as a kind of reproacli among the vege- 

 table manures, mtich as leather scraps stand in the list of animal prodiicts. For 

 mulching for covering bins or piles of roots as protection against frost, moldi- 

 ness, and decay, and for banking up in aiitumn around stables, greenhouses, 

 cisterns, cellars, and pumps, eelgrass has been found useful, and this is about all 



' See The Fishery Indiistries of the United States, Sec. II, p. 69. 



