No. 4.] THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 123 



Town of Plymouth, and that the land thereabout hath been worn 

 out to the damage of those that inherit the same, that therefore the 

 said alewives, herring, or shad commonly used in the setting of 

 corn, be appropriated to such as do or shall inhabit the said Town 

 of Plymouth" 



In 1639, however, all were forbidden after the 20th of May 

 to employ any cod or bass for manuring the ground ; but the 

 Act provided that it should be lawful to use the heads and offal, 

 showing that it had come to be considered a waste of human 

 food to use such fish on the land, except the refuse parts. 



In 1652, Edward Johnson, author of " The Wonder- 

 working Providence of Zion's Savior in New Ens^land," 

 wrote : — 



" But the Lord is pleased to provide for them [the colonists] 

 gi'eat store of fish in the springtime, especially alewives, about the 

 bignesse of herring. Many thousand of these they use to put under 

 their Indian corn, which they plant in hills five foot assunder, and 

 assuredly, when the Lord created this corne, He had a special eye 

 to supply these, His people's wants with it, for ordinarily five or 

 six grains doth produce six hundred." 



In the town records of Ipswich, Mass., May 11, 1644, is 

 found the following order, which illustrates in a comical 

 way the custom of using fish for manure in these early 

 days : — 



"It is ordered that all doggs for the space of three weeks after 

 the publishing hereof, shall have one legg tyed up, and if such a 

 dogg shall break loose and be found doing any harm, the owner of 

 the dogg shall pay damage. If a man refuses to tye up his dogg's 

 legg and hee bee found scrapeing up fish in the corn field, the owner 

 thereof shall pay twelve pence damage beside whatever damage 

 the dogg does. But if any fish their house lotts, and receive dam- 

 age by doggs, the owners of those house lotts shall bear the damage 

 themselves." 



The Nitrogen Question. 

 Passing through the records to the present time, we find 

 that menhaden and other kinds of fish have been cauoht in 

 a greater or less quantity for the enrichment of the soil. 

 We have learned, however, in later times, through the 

 efforts of the chemist, that these fish are a source of plant 



