366 
FERTILITY OF SEA-BIUB. 
furrows at a timealso in the report of the com¬ 
mittee on plows, page 282, 2d column, “ The com¬ 
mittee recommend the awarding of a diploma to 
Thomas Wiard of Avon, for his gang of plows.” 
I presume the last-mentioned must be somewhat 
similar in its object and effects to that first-men¬ 
tioned. 
An implement that will turn two or three light 
furrows at a time, say 1^ or 2 inches deep, and 
turn the grass over and under, is a long-sought de¬ 
sideratum in the culture of all our crops, cane, cot¬ 
ton, and corn. It happens more or less every 
year, that a continuation of rains covers the whole 
face of the earth with grass, which must be killed 
in as short a time as possible, within a week after 
the ground is fit to work, or the grass will get so 
far ahead as to materially affect the crop. We 
have tried cultivators—have had them of all pos¬ 
sible patterns, &c., and they, from the nature of 
our soil, have proved unavailing. We have to de¬ 
pend on the plow, and where it has to run five or 
six times in the row, you may suppose it is a slow 
business. A plow, such as I suppose either of the 
above to be; or more properly speaking, a series 
of plows, which can he so arranged as to travel 
over the whole surface of the ground, going up 
once and down once, and destroying the grass at 
the same time, is the thing we want. If such an 
implement had been in use this last season, it 
would have made a great difference in the crop. 
In one instance—that of a neighbor—there would 
have been a difference of 100 hogsheads of sugar, 
in a crop of 250 expected. Would it be asking too 
much to send me drawings of the implement, or 
have drawings made for the Agriculturist ? 
Jno. C. Potts. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
FERTILITY OF SEA-MUD. 
There are immense deposites of sea-mud in 
salt water bays, creeks, estuaries, beaches, &c., 
which I believe have been little referred to as of 
any value to the agriculturist. There is every 
reason to suppose, a priori, that this mud is one 
of the best manures, as well as the most durable 
of all that are at present known. I hope none of 
your readers will be startled at this bold assertion, 
until they have read the reasons I shall present, 
to prove that my assertion is not wholly unfounded. 
Sea-mud, as deposited from oceanic water, must 
contain sea-salt, shell-lime, fish-slime, and earthy 
matter washed from the surrounding shores and 
rocks, as well as many other ingredients; all of 
which are found to be valuable fertilizers. We 
shall see presently its value where fairly tested. 
Providence never works in vain, and it only re¬ 
quires man to understand the designs, and apply 
them judiciously, to produce highly beneficial re¬ 
sults. 
I would recommend such deposites to be collect¬ 
ed by our farmers whose land lies convenient for 
the purpose, to put it into heaps and mix with it 
air-slacked lime and fine charcoal. By this mix¬ 
ture the salt will be partially decomposed, and a 
portion of the soda of the salt will be liberated. 
Any fish-slime, or other animal deposite, will be 
decomposed, and its ammonia liberated, which 
will be taken up by the charcoal, and firmly held, 
until the vegetation shall absorb and appropriate 
it. The lime will also decompose any vegetable 
matter deposited in the mud, and reduce it to a 
fertilizing mold. I recommend air-slacked lime, 
not that it is better than the unslacked, but mere¬ 
ly because it can be obtained at half the cost of 
the other. 
I have intended for some time past to throw out 
a suggestion relative to a further beneficial effect 
of lime, soda, or potash in soils, independent of 
their immediate use as decomposers, or as food of 
plants. When a soil is sufficiently rich in these 
alkalies and alkaline earth, they will attract ni¬ 
trogen from the atmosphere and form nitrates, 
they will also attract carbonic gas and form car¬ 
bonates. Here, then, we have nearly the whole 
elementary portion of all vegetation; carbon and 
oxygen from the carbonic gas, and nitrogen from 
the nitrates. 
The most striking instance of the great fertili¬ 
zing power of beach-mud I can give you, is the 
Romney marshes, in the county of Kent, England. 
Those marshes constitute a tract of about fifty 
thousand acres, made gradually by oceanic deposi¬ 
tion. Many years since, a sea-wall was built to 
keep the ocean from overflowing, and the ground 
brought into cultivation. The wall was first made 
nearly perpendicular, but the sea washed it so 
much that they altered it, and gave it a slope in¬ 
ward; it still washed, they then got brush-wood 
in faggots, and drove spiles through the brush ; 
the sea filled the brush-wood with shingle, and a 
permanent defence was made against further en¬ 
croachment. The wall was made from Dym- 
church to the grand redoubt, a distance of nearly 
three miles, and is about thirty feet high. The 
wall was built of clay in the first place. All the 
ditches ended at one place, where flood-gates were 
erected, to open at low tide when the ditches were 
too full, that the surplus water might runout, and 
when the tide flowed in, it kept the gates close by 
the outward pressure. The water in the ditches 
is fresh, and is never permitted to approach near¬ 
er than about four feet of the surface. This marsh 
has for a long time been the most productive land 
in Great Britain, or probably in the world. Im¬ 
mense crops of wheat have been taken from por¬ 
tions of it for seven years in succession, without 
any diminution of the product, the straw rising to 
the height of seven or eight feet. Highly produc¬ 
tive crops of mustard-seed is raised on it. As 
meadow-land for mowing, or for feeding of stock, 
it may be considered unequalled. It is truly 
gratifying to an agriculturist to stand on Lympne 
castle, built on a hill near the marsh, and view 
the whole range full of stock feeding; particularly 
the immense flocks of sheep, which look in the 
distance like so many stones dotting the marsh. 
The annual rent of this land, some years since, 
was twenty dollars (£4 10s.) per acre, and farm¬ 
ers in the neighborhood were always eager to give 
that rental for portions of it near their homestead. 
The soil of this marsh, among other oceanic de¬ 
positions, contains a large quantity of marine shell 
William Partridge. 
