ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 99 



this, every effort should be made to increase its amount. 

 For this purpose an adequate amount of stock should be 

 kept; in which respect there is now a deficiency as com- 

 pared with our country generally, as shown in the table 

 on p. 85. The stock should be furnished with a liberal 

 amount of food ; and their stalls, pens, or yards kept well 

 littered with hay, straw, weeds, leaves, or other vegetable 

 matter. Any desired amount of salt-grass and sedge, for 

 this purpose, can always be obtained from the salt-marshes. 

 The manure of the farm, thus increased, should be kept 

 from waste. It may be plowed in green in the spring, 

 or it may be kept for the fall crops ; in the latter case, its 

 decomposition should be regulated by composting with 

 muck or earth, so as to allow none of its gases to escape 

 into the air. 



The supplies of manure may be greatly increased from 

 various sources, such as sea-weed, muck, marsh mud, king 

 crabs, fish, shellfish, and shells. 



Sea-weed. — This substance is thrown up on the shores in 

 immense quantities at some seasons. Dr. S. S. Marcy, of 

 Cape Island, says that he has known two thousand wagon 

 loads to come ashore in a single tide, on a mile of Poverty 

 Beach. It is equally abundant at other places on the sea 

 and Bay-shore. It has been used to some extent, but not 

 at all in proportion to its value ; and the mode in which it 

 has been used, by throwing it into piles to decay or dry 

 up, is extremely wasteful. Sea-weeds differ from land 

 plants in decaying much more rapidly; and, when mixed 

 with soil into a compost, they soon crumble down into a 

 black earth, in which little or no trace of the plant can be 



