ECONOMIC AI. GEOLOGY. 107 



crabs composted with earth. It has been thought by some 

 that they injure the ground for the succeeding crops of 

 corn or grass, and that they promoted the growth of sorrel. 

 Many persons, however, have continued their use for 

 years in succession, with success. Mr. Wm. J. Bate, of 

 Fishing Creek, uses them every year, and with the best 

 effects, in compost, on early potatoes. A remarkably fine 

 and thrifty young orchard of his, has been manured princi- 

 pally with crabs, in their raw state. Mr. Springer, of 

 Dyer's Creek, has used them for a number of years, com- 

 posting them with saw-dust, coal-pit bottoms, mud, and 

 barn-yard manure. With a compost of 7000 crabs, twenty 

 loads of mud, two coal bottoms, seven or eight loads of old 

 hay and manure, applied on six acres of sandy loam, he 

 raised 151 i bushels of wheat. On another field, where 

 the crop, succeeding that manured with crabs, did not look 

 thrifty, he sowed a light dressing of quick lime. The crop, 

 immediately began to improve, and turned out to be an 

 excellent one. Mr. Levi Corson, of Dyer's Creek, has an 

 acre and a half of sandy loam, on which he has raised all 

 the corn and wheat needed for the use of his family, con- 

 sisting of himself and wife, for the last fifteen years. He 

 has it in two fields, and raises corn in one, and wheat in 

 the other, every year, giving each field a two years' rota- 

 tion. Occasionally, he has plowed in the wheat stubble, 

 and raised a crop of buckwheat, thus getting three crops 

 from the same ground in two years. The straw and 

 stalks have all been taken off the field, and the only mar 

 nure that has been applied, has been a compost of 2000 

 crabs, with eight or nine loads of sods from the fence cor- 



