SEA WEEDS. 



There appears to me to be a very great scope for the 

 development of Seaweed industries — and all that that implies 

 — along the coast of New South Wales. At present nothing 

 is done, and, although the development, along economic 

 lines, of our fishes, is of more immediate and pressing import- 

 ance, we should not lose sight of the great economic importance 

 of our great and varied marine flora. Naturally, those of us 

 who are naturalists find our first interest in the large number 

 of interesting groups and the many exquisitely beautiful 

 species which are found to be included among them, but, 

 while fully sensible of these estimable points of view, it would 

 be foolish of us to ignore their many uses in an economic 

 way, and the part they may play in adding to the material 

 wealth of our native land. 



For the purpose of better indicating the value of our 

 Seaweeds as a national asset, I shall here devote a few remarks 

 in regard to some of the various products obtained from them 

 in some other countries. 



Scotland, Ireland, France, and almost every European 

 ■country have at present their Seaweed industries, as has also 

 America ; but in none of these has it attained to the great 

 proportions to which the Japanese have developed theirs. 

 Apart from the great quantities used locally in the families 

 •of fishermen, the annual value in a commercial way of the 

 Seaweed productions in Japan is over ;f 400,000.* Not only 

 is the natural marine growth relied upon as a source of supply 

 but certain species of seaweed are very extensively farmed 

 and cultivated on somewhat similar lines to those followed 

 in the production of oysters. 



The greater part of the marine vegetation is consumed as 

 food, and among sea flora the Laminaria (known fami- 

 liarly to us in a general way as Kelp ), often of huge size, 



* For a very complete account of the " Seaweed Industries of 

 Japan," the reader is referred to Dr. H. M. Smith's admirable paper 

 in Bulletin 24 (1904), of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and also to 

 Sir F. A. Nicholson's " Note on Fisheries in Japan " (1907). 



