VALUE OF SEAWEED AS A FERTILISER. 
177 
them remain until freezing nights, then housed 
without the least sign of disease ever affecting 
them, when part of the same field, left and 
harvested at the usual season, was badly 
affected. C. S. 
ALUE OF SEAWEED AS A FERTILISER. 
Mr. Chamberlain, cashier of the Farmer’s 
Bank of Virginia, at Norfolk, is one of that class 
called “ fancy farmers,” by another and more 
numerous class, who never had a fancy to do 
anything different from what their fathers did 
before them; and who.complain of “worn-out 
land,” and talk of emigrating because they 
cannot make a living upon such a poor soil; 
and yet neglect to use one of the most valuable 
manures which Providence in its bounty sends 
to their very doors, because “ they reckon if it 
was of any account, daddy would have used it;” 
and as he did not for years and years, they must 
not, until at last some one whom they ridicule 
as an “ experimenter,” happens to prove to them 
that it is beyond dispute one of the best and 
cheapest fertilisers which can be used upon 
tide-water farms. 
To prove this fact, Mr. C., when engaged in 
cultivating a small farm a few years ago, insti¬ 
tuted the following experimentsHe laid off 
nine beds seven yards square, containing each 
the one hundredth of an acre, dividing them 
with pine poles. These were manured and 
spaded up, turning under the manure, and each 
sowed with one pound of oats, which would I 
be at the rate of three bushels to the acre, j 
and one ounce of clover seed, which would 
be at the rate of six and a fourth pounds to the j 
acre. The oats, when ripe, were cut, cured, 1 
and weighed upon the spot, and resulted as 
follows:— 
* No. 1. Without manure. Crop, 10 lbs., or 
1,000 lbs. to the acre. 
No. 2. One horse-cart load of seaweed, or 
“ sea ore,” gathered from the beach and spread 
immediately upon the land and spaded under. 
Crop, 47 lbs. An increase of three and seven 
tenths for the seaweed. 
No. 3. One load of same and half bushel shell 
lime, fresh burned. Crop, 43 lbs. 
No. 4. Same and one bushel lime. Crop, 41 lbs. 
No. 5. Same and two bushels lime. Crop, not 
weighed, injured by cows, but not so good as 
preceeding one. 
No. 6. One load same, reduced to ashes, 
making about a barrelful. Crop, 15 lbs. 
No. 7. One barrel of leached ashes, cost 25 
cents at soap works, and hauling. Crop, 30 lbs. 
No. 8. One barrel unleached ashes, worth 
25 cents. Crop, 47£ lbs. 
No. 9. One horse-cart load of good stable 
manure. Crop, 30 lbs. 
Thus it will be seen that the fresh seaweed 
was more than 50 per cent, better than stable 
manure, and more than 200 per cent, better than 
the ashes of the weed when dried and burnt; 
that lime was a detriment, and the greater the 
quantity, the worse the result; and that nothing 
tried was equal to the seaweed, except the 
fresh ashes from the house, and that plot gave 
a slight increase over the seaweed, and more 
than 50 per cent, better than the leached ashes. It 
was a sandy soil, and, as the crop without 
manure proves, it was naturally very un¬ 
productive. The difference in the growth of 
the clover afterwards was in a corresponding 
proportion to the oat crop. Such experiments 
upon a more extended scale, are just what 
the world wants, and just such as we should 
like to have our friends furnish us, in order 
to make them known to those who read the 
Agriculturist 
/ -- 
WELL WHEEL. 
This is a cheap fixture with a rope to raise 
water from wells, and is admirably adapted for 
raising and lowering light weights about stores 
and warehouses, as it works with much ease 
and expedition. 
MANURES.—No. L 
Manures are such substances as tend to fer¬ 
tilise the soil, and fit it to support an increased 
vegetation. They are not only the food of veg¬ 
etables, but in their modern sense, they include 
all materials whose incorporation with the soil, 
aid in its melioration, or in developing the veg¬ 
etable food they contain, and fitting it for assim¬ 
ilation by the growing plant. It includes such, 
also, as abstract it from the air, rains, dews, 
and snows, and hoard it up for the use of crops. 
The first embrace all animal and vegetable 
matter, and ashes—every particle of them—for 
they have once constituted parts of vegetable 
structures, and will again, whenever exposed, to 
be taken up by plants, under all the conditions 
necessary for their absorption. They also in¬ 
clude water, atmospheric air, and many of the 
salts and gases, which may have been dissolved, 
and are now contained in water, or are mingled 
with the air. The latter include lime, plaster, 
salt, and other mineral manures, charcoal, and 
soot, all of which furnish some food to the plant, 
but whose beneficial action in the soil is mainly 
due to the mechanical alteration they effect in 
