KALE. 



KELP. 



25 minutes, according to size and age, take it 

 up, dish it, and serve it np with melted butter, 

 gravy, and such condiments as may be most 

 agreeable to the palate." (Gardener's Jtssistant.') 

 KALE, THE WOBURN PERENNIAL. 

 See CABBAGE, BORECOLE, &c. 



KALI. A sea weed, from the ashes of which 

 the alkali, called soda, is procured. See KELP, 

 SALTWORT, and GLASSWORT. 



KALMIA. American laurel. A North Ame- 

 rican genus of hardy shrubs, remarkable for 

 the beauty of their flowers. The leaves are 

 considered poisonous to cattle, and are par- 

 ticularly fatal to sheep. The honey gathered 

 from the flowers is also charged with possess- 

 ing deleterious qualities. The plants do best 

 when grown in a peat soil, though they will 

 grow in a very sandy loam; they may Be in- 

 creased by layers or seeds. 

 ' Mr. Nuttall describes five species of kalmia 

 found in the United States: 1. K. latifolia, 

 laurel, or calico bush, common from Canada 

 to Georgia. The stem grows 3 or 4 to 10 or 12 

 feet high, with irregular, crooked, straggling 

 branches. It frequents shaded banks and rocky 

 hills, and blooms its beautiful flowers in May 

 and June. The wood of this splendid flower- 

 ing shrub is very hard, and is often used to 

 make handles for small mechanical imple- 

 ments. A decoction of the leaves is sometimes 

 used as a remedy for cutaneous diseases. 

 {Flora Cestrini.) 



2. A', august (folia, or narrow-leaved laurel, 

 commonly called sheep laurel, and dwarf laurel. 

 The stem of this species grows about two feet 

 high, being slender and somewhat branching. 

 This pretty little species of laurel is thought to 

 be particularly poisonous to sheep and other 

 stock, when eaten by them. 3. K. s,lanca. 4. 

 C uta, found in swamps betwixt Camden 

 and Statesville, South Carolina. 5. K.hirsutti, 

 found constantly on the drier margins of open 

 swamps, abundant around Savannah, Georgia. 

 KATY-DID. See PLATTPHYLLUM. 



KELP, SEA-WEED, BARILLA, &c. I class 

 these manures together, when treating of kelp, 

 since it is to the presence of various salts of 

 soda that sea-weed principally owes its ferti- 

 lizing qualities, for when they are washed out, 

 the residuum is nearly inert. Sea-weed has 

 been analyzed by M. Gaultier de Claubry. In 

 the Funts saccharinus and in the Fucus digita- 

 tus (which is much used in Scotland as a 

 manure) he found the following substances 

 {Thomsons Chcm. vol. iv. p. 298): 



Saccharine matter. Muriate of magnecia. 



Mucilage. Carbonate of potash. 



Vegetable albumen. Carbonate of soda. 



Oxalate of potash. Hydriodate of potash. 



Malate of potash. Silica. 



Sulphate of potash. Phosphate of lime. 



Sulphate of soda. Phosphate of magnesia. 



Sulphate of magnesia. Oxide of iron. 



Muriate of soda. Oxalate of lime. 



Muriate of potash. 



By burning these weeds the kelp and barilla 

 of commerce is formed; the first of which has 

 been often advantageously employed in Ireland 

 and on the coast of Scotland as a manure. The 

 Suffolk and the Kentish farmers, however, as 

 well as some of the Scotch, employ the sea- 

 weed in its freshest state, either ploughing it 

 into the ground, or spreading it on the top of 

 86 



their heaps of compost. The first plan, ho\r 

 ever, I have ever seen productive of the best 

 effects ; and in that conclusion I am supported 

 by the experience of many excellent farmers. 



' The salt turf of the sea-shore has been long 

 used in many parts of England as an excellent 

 manure, especially for potatoes ; and, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Holland (Survey of Cheshire, p. 143), 

 ! even the salt mud of the Mersey is extensively 

 ! used for the same crop, at the rate of twenty 

 ' tons per acre. " The ground thus manured not 

 I only gives a large produce of potatoes, but is 

 [ in a state of excellent preparation for a suc- 

 ceeding crop of either wheat or barley. The 

 adoption of this practice has increased very 

 greatly the value of land about Weston." 



There can be no doubt of the advantage of 

 using the sea-weed, or sea-turf, in the freshest 

 possible state, after it has been covered with 

 the salt water, as by a spring tide ; for if the 

 salt water has been suffered to drain away 

 from the weeds, and a partial decomposition 

 has taken place, their value as a manure must 

 be materially diminished. The Cornish farm- 

 ers, when they fetch the calcareous sand from 

 the sea-beach, are careful to obtain it as much 

 wetted with the salt water as possible: and 

 there are in the juices and other components 

 of marine plants a variety of ingredients which 

 must produce the most luxuriant effects upon 

 vegetation growing at a distance from the sea , 

 and their constituents are peculiarly noxious 

 to the vermin with which all cultivated soils 

 abound. If this conclusion be correct, then 

 the mode adopted by the Isle of Thanet and 

 Suffolk farmers, of collecting the sea-weed 

 into heaps, and suffering it to putrefy, is de- 

 cidedly wrong; for, by being thus decomposed, 

 half its fertilizing virtues are lost to the soil. 

 The common excuse for rendering dung putrid 

 before it is spread, viz. that it is a necessary 

 practice to kill the seeds of weeds, has no ap- 

 plication here, for those of marine weeds will 

 not grow on arable upland soils. 



The use of sea-weed as a manure, in the 

 isles of Jersey and Guernsey, has been very 

 extensive from time immemorial. Thus, in a 

 work upon Jersey, by the Rev. Philip Falle, 

 published in 1694, he observes, that "Nature 

 having denied us the benefit of chalk, lime, 

 and made, has supplied us with what fully an- 

 swers the end of them in husbandry it is a 

 sea-weed, but a weed more valuable to us than 

 the choicest plant that grows in our gardens. 

 We call it vraic (varec), in ancient records veris- 

 cum, and sometimes wrecum, and it grows on 

 the rocks about the island. It is gathered only 

 at certain times appointed by the magistrate 

 and signified to the people by a public crier 

 on a market day. There are two seasons for 

 cutting it, the one in summer, the other about 

 the vernal equinox. The summer vraic, being 

 first well dried by the sun on the sea-shore, 

 serves for fuel, and makes a hot, glowing fire ; 

 but the ashes are a great improvement to the 

 j soil, and are equal almost to a like quantity of 

 lime. The winter vraic being spread thin on 

 , the green turf, and afterwards buried in the 

 furrows by the plough, it is incredible how with 

 its fat unctuous substance it ameliorates the 

 ground, imbibing itself into it, softening the 



68 1 



