218 NETHER LOCHABER. 



an ill wind," quoth the proverb, " that blows nobody good ;" and 

 disastrous in many a place as was the dreadful storm of the first 

 week of this month [November 1872], here along the western sea- 

 board it only blew us good, in the very tangible and tangly shape 

 of thousands of tons of drift-ware, that, laid on the soil in fair 

 abundance just now, prepares it without any more trouble for the 

 reception of seed, when, ushered in by the vernal equinox, the 

 jocund, jolly spring comes round. For the last fortnight, wherever 

 you wandered about the coast, you found the people in every 

 direction men, women, and children busy as busy could be 

 gathering and carting afield this really valuable product of the sea 

 Homer and Horace to the contrary notwithstanding. We draw 

 attention to the subject at present by reason of its timeousness, and 

 because within recent years we have had it made clear to us beyond 

 all cavil, and in the most practical manner possible, that for potatoes 

 at least there is no manure for a moment to be compared with a 

 heavy blanketing of drift-ware laid on the ground in early winter. 

 On our own land this year a field of potatoes thus treated was a 

 third at least better than another of equal size manured from the 

 farmyard " heap " in the usual orthodox manner. The soil, observe, 

 was the same, the seed the same, the date of planting the same 

 the only difference being in the manure. In the experience of such 

 of our neighbours, too, as have tried it, the result has been precisely 

 the same. The salts and other essential ingredients of sea ware 

 seem to be really antagonistic to the spread of " blight " among the 

 tubers ; and we would strongly advise as many of our readers as 

 have the opportunity to experiment for themselves in the direction 

 indicated during the present winter and spring, and we are ready to 

 wager our good porcupine-shafted " Pickwick " steel pen against the 

 vilest crow-quill, that, on the ingathering of the crop this time twelve 

 months, our advice, in nineteen cases out of twenty, will have been 

 found to be a sound and good one. 



