1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 181 



which I caused to be poured over wheat that was just tillering, made 

 the straw grow rank and coarse ; the grain of every variety of wheat 

 was dark and thick-skinned, hence containing less meal. The same 

 quantity and mixture of liquid manure, poured a second time over an- 

 other portion of wheat caused it to grow rank and full of leaves rather 

 than straw, that only a few of the plants produced ears of wheat, some 

 having run up into sharp points, with merely the rudiments of ears in- 

 dicated. The few ears that produced corn, displayed it in its worst 

 form, hardly in the shape of meal, of a doughy, soft texture, evidently 

 unfit for the food of man, besides some of them were smutty. Thus 

 an over application of manure, excellent when judiciously applied, be- 

 comes a poison, precisely in the same manner as in the human consti- 

 tution a surfeit is usually the parent of disease." 



" The wheat on either side of these experiments, which had only been 

 manured with the ashes of kelp or sea-weed was healthy, productive, 

 and farinaceous in the highest degree. Kelp or the ashes of rock sea- 

 weed, that which is cut is the best of all." 



" I am inclined to believe, that paring and burning an old ley, will 

 almost produce as equally good effect, where the land is suited to it, 

 with the ashes of kelp ; for although the ashes may not be of that su- 

 perior quality or possessing all those virtues peculiar to kelp ashes, 

 still the much greater portion of ashes, that can by this means be 

 spread, may make amends in quantity and quality." 



" Kelp ashes should lay on the surface of the soil a month or two pre- 

 vious to sowing, in order to weaken their caustic power, or they are 

 otherwise apt to burn the young and tender shoots of the corn as well 

 as the larvGB of insects ; but by laying a certain length of time on the 

 surface exposed to the action of the atmosphere, or perhaps what 

 would be a better practice, merely lightly turned into the soil, they be- 

 come eminently beneficial." 



" From lands in a very bad state, infested with couch grass in 1832, 

 by means of paring and burning previous to taking a crop of potatoes, 

 which produced thirty-four thousand eight hundred pounds of saleable 

 potatoes to the acre ; and with an after dressing of forty bushels to 

 the acre of kelp or sea-weed ashes, I raised forty bushels of fine wheat 

 to the acre. One season I raised fifty-five, and last season fifty-one 

 bushels ; this year I hope to have reaped as much with drill husban- 

 dry, though on land in a very bad state, which had been much neg- 

 lected." — Le Coteur. 



