Plougldng-in Green Crops. 
107 
seaweed. Where this manure is abundant, the rent of arable 
land is often enhanced from 30s. to 21. per acre, if accom- 
panied by the privilege of gatherinj^ the seaweed. On the 
west coasts of Scotland and the seaboard of the Frith of Clyde 
this species of manure is largely used by the arable farmers. 
The autumn and winter storms drift it in from the wide waters 
of the Atlantic, and, according to the direction of the wind and 
state of the tides, it is washed on the sandy beach or amongst 
inaccessible rocks, all the way from Troon harbour, on the north- 
east, to the mouth of Loch Ryan, on the south-west. As soon 
as the tide recedes all the hands on the farm are set to work im- 
mediately to remove the wrack left by the receding waters. It is 
all collected and carted out of the reach of the next tide, other- 
wise with a change of wind it is liable to be swept away and 
carried by the next tide to some distant part of the coast. The 
general practice is to cart the seaweed in its green state direct 
from the beach on to the land, where it is spread on the stubble 
at the rate of from 20 to oO tons per acre, and at once ploughed- 
in, in preparation for the succeeding crop. In this part of the 
country potatoes are largely grown : in this way, without the 
addition of farmyard or artificial manure, heavy crops are often 
raised, though they are sometimes of inferior quality. 
Throughout the greater part of Scotland the wheat plant does 
not succeed well after a clover-layer : it then commonly follows 
a green crop — potatoes or turnips — the land receiving in pre- 
paration from 10 to 15 tons per acre of farmyard manure. I 
have known instances where the tenant, unrestricted as to 
cropping, had such an abundant supply of seaweed, that the 
land has been under wheat and potatoes alternately for a long 
series of years without deteriorating the value of the land or 
decreasing the quantity of the produce, the tenant paying a rent 
of upwards of 5Z. per acre. 
Elbaston, Derby. 
VI. — Plougliincj-in Green Crops. By W. E. WrighT. 
The green crops we treat of may be either a part or the whole 
of cultivated crops, incorporated with the soil in their succulent 
state, to act as fertilisers for subsequent crops, and especially 
those raised upon the spot with the express design of being used 
as a manure. Merely to return to the soil its produce might 
seem to an unreflecting person, or to one unacquainted with agri- 
cultural chemistry, utterly incapable of imparting fertility ; and, 
certainly, if plants derived all their substance out of the soil, 
