HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. lOT 



"About tlie first of June be [Mr. Tuthill] carted near half an oxcart 

 load of those fish on twenty feet square of poor, light land, being loam 

 mixed with sand. The fish he spread as equally as he could by throw- 

 ing them out of the cart; being exposed to the weather, they were soon 

 consumed. He then raked off the bones, to prevent their hurting the 

 foet of the children who might go into the garden, and ploughed up the 

 piece and planted it with cucumbers and a few cabbages. The season 

 was extremely dry, and but few cucumbers grew in the neighborhood 

 except what grew on this small piece, and here the production exceeded 

 anything that had before been known. By his own computation and 

 that of his neighbors, this twenty feet square of ground produced more 

 than forty bushels of cucumbers, besides some fine cabbages. I meas- 

 ured the ground myself, and have no doubt of the quantity adjudged 

 to have grown on the same." 



Mr. L'Homraedieu's theoretical explanation of this is clear and simple. 

 The fish " enrich the land by their putrefaction." When this process 

 has ceased he questions whether much more good can be expected from 

 tbem, and doubts if they will make a lasting manure; nor does he 

 find any fault with his neighbor for raking away the bones instead 

 of covering them with earth to prevent their pricking his children's bare 

 feet. In the decomposition a good deal of " effluvia" is evolved, which 

 is evidently absorbed by the leaves of the plants, and contributes to 

 their growth. But " by putting these fish on the land for manure, ex- 

 posed to the air until they are consumed, there can be no doubt that a 

 considerable part of the manure is lost by the effluvia which passes off 

 the putrefied substance, as is evident from the next experiment." This 

 was made by " Mr. Joseph Glover, a farmer in Suffolk County," who 

 had evidently learned the art of composting fish with earth, and prac- 

 ticed it in a way which some farmers nowadays might improve their 

 ways by imitating. 



" He first carts earth and makes a bed of such circumference as will 

 admit of being nine inches thick ; he then puts on one load of fish, then 

 covers this load with four loads cf common earth, but if he can get rich 

 dirt he covers it with six loads, and in that manner makes of fish and 

 earth a heap of about thirty loads. The whole mass soon becomes im- 

 pregnated and turns black. By experience he finds that fifteen ox-cart 

 loads of this manure is a sufficient dressing for one acre of his poor land, 

 which produces him thirty bushels of the best wheat by the acre." 



Now it happened that Mr. Glover made a heap of fish and earth " in 

 the manner above related near a fence where a field of wheat was grow- 

 ing on the opposite side. The wheat near the heap soon changed its 

 colour, grew luxuriant, and at harvest yielded near double the quantity 

 to the other parts of the field." The improvement in the wheat near the 

 heap, Mr. L'Hommedieu thinks, must be due to the "effluvia arising 

 from the putrefaction of the fish and absorbed by the leaves of the 

 wheat." 



