AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH M.\RKET STREET, (Aoricultural Warehouse.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



>L..XX[I.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 13, 1843. 



[NO. II. 



N. E. FARMER. 



KELP, SEA-WEED, &c. AS MANURE. 

 It, i.s to the presence of various salts of soda tliat 

 i-weed owes its fertilizing qualities, for when 

 y are washed out, the residuum is nearly inert, 

 burning these weeds, the kelp and barilla of 

 iimerce are formed. The Suffolk and the Kent- 

 farmers, as well as some of the Scotch, employ 

 sea-weed in its freshest state, either plowing 

 nio the ground, or spreading it on the top of 

 ir heaps of compost. The first plan, however, 

 ave over seen productive of the best effects ; 

 I in that conclusion I am supported by the expe- 

 ice of many excellent farmers. 

 riie salt turf of the sea-shore has been long 

 d in many parts of England as an excellent ina- 

 e, especially for potatoes ; and according to Dr. 

 Hand, even the salt mud of the Mersey, is ex- 

 sively used for the same crop, at the rale of 20 

 3 per acre. "The ground thus manured not 

 y giyes a large produce of potatoes, but is in a 

 .e of excellent preparation for a succeeding crop 

 Mther wheat or barley. The adoption of this 

 ctice has increased very greatly the value of 

 d about Weston." 



Phere can be no doubt of the advantage of using 

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

 e, after it has been covered with the salt water, 

 jy a spring tide. The Cornish farmers, when 

 yr fetch the calcareous sand from the sea-beach, 

 careful to obtain it as much wetted with the 

 . water as possible ; and tliere are in the juices 

 other components of marine plants, a variety 

 ngredients which must produce the most hixu- 

 it effects upon vegetation growing at a distance 

 n the sea ; and their constituents are peculiarly 

 ious to the vermin with which all cultivated 

 a abound. If this conclusion be correct, then 

 mode adopted by the Isle of Thanet and Suf- 

 ; farmers, of collecting the aea-weed into heaps, 

 suffering it to putrefy, is decidedly wrong ; 

 by being thus decomposed, half its fertilizing 

 ues are lost to the soil. The common reason 

 rendering dung putrid before it is Spread, viz. 

 I it is necessary to kill the seeds of weeds, has 

 application here, for those of marine weeds will 

 grow on arable upland soils. 

 Phe use of sea-weed as a manure, in the isles 

 fersey and Guernsey, has been very extensive, 

 n time immemorial. Thus, in a work on Jer- 

 , by the Rev. Philip Fallc, published in 1694, 

 observes that " Nature having denied us the 

 efit of chiilk, lime and marl, has supplied us 

 !i what fully answers the end of them in hus- 

 dry — it is a sea-weed, but a weed more vahia- 

 to us than the choicest plant that grows in our 

 dens. We call it i-rnic, (varec,) in ancient re- 

 Is verisctim, and sometimes wiecum, and it 

 ws on the rocks about the island. It is gather- 

 ^nly at certain times appointed by the magis- 

 e and signified to tho people by a public crier, 

 1 market day. There are two seasons for cut- 

 ; it, the one in summer, the other about the ver- 



nal equinox. The summer vruic being first well 

 dried by the sun on tho sea-shore, serves fur fuel, 

 and makes a Jiot, glowing fire ; but the ashes are 

 a great improvement to the soil, and are equal al- 

 most to a like quantity of lime. The winter vrnic 

 being spread thin on the green turf, and afterwards 

 buried in the furrows by the plow, it is incredible 

 how Willi its fat unctious substance it ameliorates 

 the ground, imbibing itt^elf into it, softening the 

 clod, and keeping the root of the grain moist dur- 

 ing the most parching heats of summer. In stormy 

 weather, the sea does often tear up from the rocks 

 vast quantities of this weed, and casts it on the 

 shore, where it is carefully gathered up by the glad 

 husbandman." 



The application of kelp as a manure, has engag- 

 ed the serious attention of the farmers on the 

 shores of Scotland, and a committee was sometime 

 since appointed by the Highland Society of Scot- 

 land to report upon its pretensions. The following 

 is from their report : 



" Your committee are unwilling to offer any the- 

 oretical opinion as to the way in which kelp may 

 operate as a manure. Prom the quantity of alkali 

 which it contains, it may naturally be expected to 

 operate by rendering the animal and vegetable 

 matter soluble, and a fit food for plants ; but, from 

 the series of facts to be noticed, kelp would seem 

 to possess other qualities as a manure. Although 

 it may be beneficially applied as a dressing by it- 

 self, yet the committee are at present inclined to 

 think that, with a view to raising of green crops, 

 it would be better to mix it in compost with other 

 substances. The selection of these must depend 

 npon what the farmer can furnish ; but the com- 

 mittee think that good earth or moss will form a 

 good compost, and if to this mixture can be added 

 a little vegetable or animal manure, a beneficial 

 result can be relied on. In this way, a few tons 

 of kelp would enable a farmer to extend his farm 

 dung over at least four times the quantity of land." 



The relative value of kelp as a manure, may be 

 estimated from the following experiments, made in 

 the neighborhood of Edinburgh. A field owned 

 by a Mr Hutchinson, was selected, which had been 

 in wheat in the year lb38, hence it was in some 

 measure in an exhausted state. Upon one ridge 

 of this field there was sown at the rate of 12 cwt. 

 of kelp (of commerce) per acre; on a second, at 

 the rate of 10 cwt. per acre ; and on a third, at the 

 rate of 4 cwt. per acre. Two other ridges were 

 manured with the best cow and horse dung, at the 

 rate of 20 tons per acre, and the whole was sown 

 with wheat late in the spring of 1829. The two 

 ridges which had got the greatest quantity of kelp 

 were equal to that which had the dung, and the 

 ridge which had got the smallest vuantity, was de- 

 cidedly superior to the others. Similar experi- 

 ments were made upon the same field, by sowing 

 barley after the previous crop of wheat ; the result 

 was, that the barley manured with the kelp was, 

 according to the estimate of the tenant and his 

 steward, a much heavier crop than after an applica- 

 tion of horse and cow-dung, and that the ridge with 

 the smallest quantity of kelp appeared to give the 



heaviest crop. Turnips, manured with kelp at the 

 rate of one ton per acre, were found fully equal in 

 quantity to those which had been manured with 

 dung. 



No description of fertilizer, perhaps, can be nam- 

 ed, which freshens, as the fanners say, an over- 

 cropped soil so much, as a dressing of fr(mi 20 to 

 25 loads per acre of the turf from the sea-shore, 

 soaked with sea-water : and no plant delights in 

 Iresh soil so much as the potato. It is, therefore, 

 more than probable, that the excretions of the com- 

 monly cultivated grain crops are peculiarly noxious 

 to this plant ; and it is certain that the potato, by 

 the deposite which it leaves in tho soil, renders it 

 distasteful to the crop by which it is succeeded. 

 'I'hus the wheat plant rarely looks well on soils 

 where the potato has immediately preceded it. 

 Saline fertilizers, in these cases, are sure to be 

 serviceable, for they unite with, and neutralize the 

 effects, as well as promote the decomposition of, 

 the excretory matters which all plants deposite in 

 the soil. — Johnson's Far. Encydop. 



Experiments and Observntians on the Production 

 of Butter. — We find in the Tran.sactions of the 

 Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland, an in- 

 teresting account, by Professor Trail, of eight se- 

 ries of experiments in the prodnction of butter. 

 They occupy ten pages, but we have room only for 

 the principal results. 



1. That the addition of some cold water during 

 churning, facilitates the process, or the separation 

 of the butter, especially when the cream is thick 

 and the »veather hot. 



2. That cream alone is more easily churned than 

 a mixture of cream and milk. 



3. That the butter produced from sweet cream 

 has the finest flavor when fresh, and appears to 

 keep longest without acquiring rancidity ; but that 

 the buttermilk so obtained, is poor and small in 

 quantity. [Nothing neto in all that.] 



4. That scalding of the cream, according to 

 the Devonshire method, yields the largest quantity 

 of butter ; which, if intended for immediate use, is 

 agreeable to the palate and readily saleable ; hut 

 if intended to be sailed, is most liable to acquire, 

 by keeping, a rancid flavor. The process of scald- 

 ing is troublesome ; and the milk, after the removal 

 of the cream, is poor, and often would be unsalea- 

 ble, from the taste it has acquired from the heat- 

 ing. 



5. That churning the milk and cream together, 

 after they have become slightly acid, seems to be 

 the most economical process on the whole, because 

 it yields a large quantity of excellent butter, and 

 the buttermilk is of a good quality. [The latter 

 article is probably more valued in Scotland than 

 with us.] 



fi. That the keeping of butter in a sound state, 

 appears to depend on its being obtained as free 

 from uncoinbined albumen, or casein, and water, 

 as it can be, by means of washing and working the 

 butter when taken from the churn. — American Ag- 

 riculturist. 



