1910.] Composition of Seaweed and Use as Manure. 459 



ameliorates the ground, imbibing it-self into it, softening the 

 Clod, and keeping the root of the Corn moist during the most 

 parching heats of Summer. In stormy weather, the Sea doth 

 often tear up from the Rocks vast quantities of this Weed, 

 and casts it on the Shore, where it is carefully laid up by the 

 glad Husband-man." Indeed, collective experience in Jersey 

 has crystallised in an old proverb, "Point de vraic, point de 

 hangar d." 



Enormous improvements were recorded in parts of Scot- 

 land as a result of using seaweed. In the Reports to the 

 Board of Agriculture published at the end of the eighteenth 

 century many references occur. About 50 bolls to the acre 

 were applied in Forfar, and lasted for three years, giving 

 excellent barley crops. It was much esteemed for barley and 

 turnips in Kincardine, whilst in Dumbarton it was used for 

 grass, oats, and potatoes, the cut weed being considered 

 better than the drift weed. Coming to later times, Murray 

 in 1868 writes: " Where this manure is abundant the rent 

 of arable land is often enhanced from thirty shillings to two 

 pounds per acre, if accompanied by the privilege of gathering 

 the seaweed.'* Going still further north, seaweed has figured;: 

 so much in the agriculture of the Shetlands that the old name 

 for a dung fork (taricrook) means literally seaweed fork,, 

 than being the old Norse for seaweed . In almost every 

 district where seaweed is obtainable, evidence might be 

 adduced to show the high esteem in which it was formerly 

 held. 



It has probably even now lost but little of its old reputation, 

 in spite of the large choice of fertilisers at the command of 

 the modern farmer. It is still diligently collected in the 

 west country just as in Camden's day ; the amount available 

 is, of course, very variable, and most comes into the bays 

 facing south and south-west — the direction of the storms. 

 In the market gardening regions of south Cornwall it is not, 

 as a rule, used in the fresh condition, but is mixed with sand 

 as of old and allowed to rot. It is then applied along with 

 guano and superphosphate for early potatoes and cauli- 

 flowers. Elsewhere it is put on to the root crops. Mr. 

 Dutton informs me that the material usually collected is Fucus 

 serratus, F. vesiculosus, and, after stormy weather, Laminaria 



K K 2 



