SEAWEED 259 



turned south again, and from Heysham sailed to 

 Belfast. 



Our first day we spent in the Ards, the low pen- 

 insula which runs south and east from Belfast between 

 Strangford Lough and the sea true Ulster, where the 

 inhabitants are almost wholly of Scotch descent. On 

 leaving the city we ascended pretty rapidly into an 

 undulating country with a light reddish drift soil rest- 

 ing on slaty rock not very far below. One character- 

 istic of farming in this district was immediately manifest 

 in the way the road was blocked from time to time 

 by strings of country carts drawing up seaweed, evil- 

 smelling loads of which were deposited in bays by the 

 wayside. It was not true seaweed, however, but the 

 green Ulva, which flourishes wherever there is a dis- 

 charge of sewage into the sea, and has become a serious 

 nuisance in Belfast Lough. Indeed, we understood 

 that it was collected by the sanitary authorities and 

 could be had by the farmers for the carting, thanks to 

 which assistance it was being plentifully used, though its 

 fertilizing properties are lower than those of seaweed 

 proper, and particularly of the deep-water wrack which 

 comes ashore on many coasts. The country was 

 divided up into small enclosures with good hedges, and 

 possessed in many ways an unexpectedly English air 

 Scotch would perhaps be more correct, for the small 

 whitewashed farmhouses and cottages by the roadside 

 were more characteristic of certain parts of Scotland. 



We stopped at one small farm not far out from 

 Belfast, a holding of about 40 acres, farmed on a seven 

 years' rotation. Oats were followed by flax and 

 barley, to which succeeded a root crop (potatoes and 

 turnips) manured with seaweed and whatever farmyard 

 manure was available. Oats were again taken after the 

 roots, and with the corn grass seeds were sown, to 



