182 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



of foreigii barilla, the manufacture has nearly ceased through- 

 out the United Kingdom, and it lias become a matter of great 

 importance to a very numerous class of poor and industrious 

 persons, formerly employed in its production, to discover any 

 useful purpose to which it can be applied. It requires about 

 '30 tons of the weed in its wet state to produce one ton of 

 kelp, and it is said to resemble peat-ashes in its effects. 



Kelp when intended for use as manure is pounded into a 

 powder, and applied in the same manner as the ashes; but its 

 causticity affects the hands of the workmen, and when spread 

 as a top-dressing, it is therefore prudent to mix it with an 

 equal quantity of fine sand, which both prevents that injury 

 and facilitates its equal distribution. In this way it has been 

 already employed with considerable advantage. 



Refuse Fish. — Large shoals of herrings, pilchards, and other 

 sea-fish, periodically frequent many parts of the coasts of Great 

 Britain, which, being salted, leave great quantities of refuse, 

 which are used as manure.* Sprats, and other small fry, are 

 also employed for the same purpose; and in the fens of Lin- 

 colnshire and Cambridgeshire, the small fish called stickle- 

 backs abound in such swarms, that they are frequently pur- 

 chased by farmers at a very trifling cost, and either formed 

 into composts with earth, or laid upon the land without further 

 preparation. One barrel of such offal is mixed in about 4 or 

 5 cart-loads of earth, sweepings of ditches, or sand ; and after 

 being well incorporated, the compost is usually applied at the 

 rate of about 20 cart-loads per acre, more or less, according to 

 the quantity of oil contained in the garbage. 



The effect of a compost when thus prepared have been 

 known to last for a considerable time, and when laid as a top- 

 dressing upon grass-land, has produced very large crops; but 

 when applied in that manner in its natural state, it is often 

 prejudicial to the first crops; and not very beneficial to those 

 which follow.f It should, therefore, in every case, be either 

 made into a compost, and completely decomposed; or, if 



*In Scotland, it is calculated that 14 barrels of herrings yield one barrel 

 refuse: pilchards something less, but containing rather more oily matter ; 

 and there are, besides, large quantities wholly spoiled. To which may be 

 added, the entrails of the cod and ling, which are caught and salted "to a 

 vast amount in the north. 



t The manure produced in the fishing villages from the oily and fishy sub- 

 stances, though admitted to be favourable to bear (barley) and green crops, 

 yet when much used, is said to render the soil unfit for the production of 

 oats: "Hence that soil is called poisoned." — Sinclair's Statistical Account 

 of Scotland, vol. vii p. 201. 



