On Salt Marsh. 275 



the wheat land. The last crop of wheat and rye was not 

 so heavy, neither in straw nor grain, although our farm- 

 ers improved as fast as the marsh — their idle habits have 

 yielded to the incitement of golden harvests. They know 

 how to live better, and understand that the best means to 

 procure good food is to work for it. They give the pre- 

 ference to dried eels and potatoes, over dried eels alone ; 

 and acknowledge that corn-fed pork is more savoury than 

 that which was fattened on king crabs.* 



Permit me now to attempt to account for the deterio- 

 ration of the crop of grain, (though the grass had im- 

 proved every year,) at the same time admitting that a 

 very intelligent and experienced gentlemanf of Port Eli- 

 zabeth, ascribes the fact entirely to the xvant of a change 

 in the nature of the crop. It will be recollected that our 

 marsh is composed of a body of rich blue mud, on the 

 top of which is a vegetable resembling a spunge ; and 

 that spunge is three inches, and often more, in thick- 

 ness. There cannot therefore be much substance till 

 the surface decays and mingles with the solid sediment 

 of tide water on which it grows. Nevertheless, every 

 fresh or spring tide before the bank was made, left a 

 little mud on the top of the spunge ; — that little, coming 

 twice or thrice a year, had a fertilizing effect. Additional 

 richness was derived from the atmosphere, if we accept 

 the opinion of a writer who asserts that " dew when pu- 

 rified in a vessel, has a black sediment like mud, at the 

 bottom, which causes that darkish colour to the upper 



* Sometimes called " horse shoes," — 'large crawling shell fish, 

 used for hog-feed, and giving a disagreeable fishy flavour to the 

 pork. 



t Joshua Brick, Esq. 



