1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



689 



the numbers of worms to be fed, and not accord- 

 ing to the final or usual success ofihe rearing. If 

 hair the worms die in their last feeding age, from 

 the edects of bad climate, (as is more usual than 

 otherwise in Franco;) the cost of food is but little 

 lessened, and the trouble and perplexity of the cul- 

 turist fully as much increased by his loss of half his 

 stock, and of course half the full product. In our 

 far superior climate, as in China, such losses will 

 very rarely occur; and therelbre, even if the whole 

 cost of feeding a certain number of worms were 

 equal, the product obtained would be greater in 

 this country than in France, where the average 

 mortality and loss of worms is so much greater. 

 And the quality of the product, (as is already a 

 well established fact,) will be superior, as well as 

 the quantity. 



" A dry atmosphere, the security of mulberry 

 leaves from late frosts— in short, a good silk cli- 

 mate—though not an element ofcnst, is eminently 

 an element of success in rearing silk-worms. We 

 possess such a climate, in common with the Chi- 

 nese and the Turks of Asia Minor; and such as 

 is not enjoyed in any part of western Europe. It 

 is the possession of this great advantage, still 

 more than cheap labor, that enables the Chinese 

 to make the cheapest silk on the dearest land and 

 food in the world ; and the indolent and negligent 

 Turk of Asia Minor to compete with the mtelli- 

 gent and industrious European." 



OTi SEA-WKED. 



From the Cultivator. 

 Wheat- Sheaf Farm, Slaten Island, } 

 September IQth, 1839. S 



J. BuEL, Esq.— i)car Sir— In your last num- 

 ber, you expressed a wish " to receive a commu- 

 nication from some person familiar with the sub- 

 ject, as to the best mode of preparing sea-weed, 

 and of applying it to the soil.'' I will not say that 

 I am myself' as familiar, as I may become on fur- 

 ther experience, with the best mode; though 1 

 have read much of it, and, as attentively as I 

 could, have noticed the practical coincidence of 

 what I have read with the result of my own, and 

 the usual neighboring modes of using it; and I 

 believe I have read essentiaUy all that can be 

 found published, as the result of practice or science, 

 in relation to it. 



On turning to page 135 of your same number, 

 among the very excellent observations of Henry 

 R. Madden, Esq., of Edinburgh, we find much 

 of what may be said of it. The sea-weeds of 

 the coasts of Scotland and Ireland are, no doubt, 

 in most respects, similar to ours. Those of our 

 coast, as well as theirs, (all within the general bo- 

 tanical descriptions of jilg(s, Fuel, and Covferv<z. 

 The similitudes may be traced distinctly in Lou- 

 don, where the Ibrras of the entire plants are 

 given. 



Though beneficial to a sandy soil of good compo- 

 sition, they have been found, I believe, mostly so 

 to a clay, and well calculated to divide its tena- 

 cious or adhesive qualities. They are here usu- 

 ally ploughed in with ordinary manures, after they 

 have become dry and short, through the limited 

 fermentation spontaneously occurring in the sea- 

 weed heap ; or after they have been taken thence, 

 Vol.. VI 1—87 



more or less dried, used as barn-yard or way lit- 

 ter, and thus become incorporated with the ma- 

 nure. On such applications, a free use of the 

 sand of the sea-shore is also made, intermixed 

 with it, if intended lor a clay soil, for several rea- 

 sons— on account of its saline humidity, and the 

 known attraction for moisture of stony or silicious 

 substances once wet with salt water ; of the su- 

 perior influence of sea-sand (in which of course 

 no clay is to be found) above ordinary sand, in 

 amending the composition of a clay soil : on ac- 

 count of "^ihe frequent admixture with beach sand, 

 of the granulations or particles of minute sea- 

 shells, which the frictional action of the sea on its 

 stones break up, and intermixes with it ; and also 

 of the operation of the sand on the vegetable sub- 

 stances brought into contact with it by the tread of 

 cattle, and which the acute angles of the sandy 

 pebbles cut and divide, thus accelerating the divi- 

 sion of the vegetable matter, and hastening its pre- 

 paration as a manure. 



Sea- weed is also in some instances wind- dried, 

 with little or no fermentation, and thus used lor 

 littering horses and cattle, thence finding its way 

 to the manure heap. This practice is well enough 

 with such surplus as may be gathered over and 

 above all the farming supply that can be ploughed 

 in green, which has ever been considered, else- 

 where than here, the best course with every de- 

 scription, except that particular species of the 

 Fuel class known as the zostera marina (wrack 

 grass,) a long (say two or three feet) flat leaf or 

 spear, a sixte'enth of an inch wide, which, in the 

 heap, hangs together in large masses. This is 

 more difficult to decay than the rest ; but when 

 short, answers a very useful object, over and above 

 its saline and vegetable properties as an amenda- 

 tor of the texture of clays, in which its detached 

 short pieces will remain visible for many years, 

 dividing its particles. This weed could be readily 

 and expeditiously broken or cut fine by a horse- 

 power operation and machine, similar to the teeth 

 and concave and convex of the common thrasher; 

 and then that too would be best ploughed in 

 green. Its length entire would render the opera- 

 tion of ploushing it in, if at all possible, extreme- 

 ly difficult, and then it would remain undivided by 

 decay too long for ^T&e tillage. 



Although 1, for my own part, entirely disagree 

 with the practice, so olten urged, of applying lime, 

 out of the earth, to vegetable manures which have 

 been cured, or in any way deprived of their succu- 

 lence or mucilage, or animal manures or substan- 

 ces in any shape, I would use it freely with all 

 kinds of the sea-weed while green; because the 

 lime in that contact will become effectually divest- 

 ed of all its caiisticity, be thus readily fitted for im- 

 mediate action on vegetable growth and the soil, 

 and will by its heat overcome the check to fermen- 

 tation which the saline impregnation of the weed 

 gives to them. If the heap in this state be occa- 

 sionally wet, it will aid the operation by prevent- 

 ing the excessive heat v/hich the lime would en- 

 gender. 



Lime, as I understand it, not only betters the 

 texture of a clay soil, but its causticity particular- 

 ly is destructive of any acidity in it j and bo are 

 the saline parts of the sea-weed, as 1 believe, and 

 propose explaining presently. Perhaps before the 

 causticity of the lime is exhausted by a contact 

 with green vegetable fermentation, or with the 



