^^ OF MANURES. Part I. 



is found, it is taken up by a large bag of the ftrongeft canvas, to the 

 mouth of vVhich is fitted an iron hoop or frame for keeping it open, 

 and finking it to the bottom of the fea, fo as it may receive the 

 fand and coral as it is dredged along by the barge-men. A barge- 

 load is ufually delivered for ten fliillings, or lefs if near the place of 

 dredging : and where the land is good, a barge-load will drefs an 

 acre. It is ufed more for corn, than pafture grounds. It gives the 

 heat of lime, and the fatnefs of oil, to the land it is laid upon. 

 Being more folid than Hiells, it conveys a greater quantity of ferment- 

 ing earth in equal fpace. Befides, it does not diffolve in the ground 

 fo foon as (liells, but, decaying more gradually, continues longer to 

 impart its warmth to the juices of the earth. It is chieiiy found in 

 Falmouth harbour, and the fliores adjoining. Not only fea-fand is 

 lifed as manure by every one who has it in his reach, but after ftorms 



"they find the aJga marina, fiicus, conferva, or ore-weed, one of the 

 befl manures which nature affords, fcattered in great plenty on the 



-fliore. Being a fub-marine plant, the wind and fun foon exhale 

 its moifture : the fooner therefore it is taken from the fliore, the 

 better; and being fpread on old and ftiff earth, then covered with 

 fand, it foon diifolves into a fait oily llime. 



This is the moft approved way of applying it. Some lay it 

 naked and frefli from the fea, upon their barley lands, in the end of 

 March and beginning of April, and have a good crop of corn : but 

 the weeds grow fo plentifully and rank afterwards, that no whole- 

 fome grafs for pafture is to be expected for that year. Sir George 

 M'Kenzie obferves (Phil. Tranf No. 117.) that lands often ufed to 

 this manure yield bad oats, and in a fmall quantity, the hufks thicker 

 than ordinary, and more darnel among the corn, than in lands which 

 have not fo much ore-weed laid upon them. 



" The ufe of land, as Mr. Miller obferves, is to make the clayey 

 ■earth fertile, and fit to feed vegetables, &c. for earth alone, we 

 find, is liable to coalefce, and gather into a hard coherent mafs, as 

 is apparent in clay ; and earth thus embodied, and, as it were, 

 glued together, is no v.'ays dlfpofed to nourifli vegetables : but if 

 with fuch earth, fand, &c. i. e. hard cryftals, which are not dil- 

 folvable in water, and ftill retain their figure, be intermixed, they 

 will keep the pores of the earth open, and the earth itfelf loofe and 

 incompaft, and by that means give room for the juices to afcend, 

 and for plants to be nouriflied thereby." 



" Thus, a vegetable, planted either in fand alone, or in a fat glebe, 



or 



