170 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 8. 
them with the ashes of this plant, which abounds with 
such quantity of salts, that from five ounces of the 
ashes may be procured two ounces and a half of fixed 
alkaline salts, that is, half of their whole weight. But 
the most beneficial use to which the F. vesiculosus is 
applied, in the way of economy, is in making pot-asli or 
kelp, a work much practised in the Western isles. The 
manner of doing it is this:—the plant is collected and 
dried carefully upon the shore in small heaps. When 
thoroughly dry, a pit is dug in sandy ground, about 
seven feet wide, and three deep, lined with stones, hr 
this pit a fire is kindled with small sticks, and the dried 
Fucns is laid upon it by little and little, and burnt 
When a sufficient quantity is consumed for the purpose, 
and burnt to a certain degree, it appears in the pit like 
red-hot ashes. The operator then, to prevent its being 
reduced entirely to ashes, with an iron rake stirs about 
briskly this hot matter from one side of the pit to the 
other, mixing it well together, till at length it begins to 
congeal and vitrify. The salts being now all melted, the 
matter is left to cool in the bottom of the pit, where, as 
in a mould, it concretes into a solid mass, called Kelp, 
which, when cold, is broken out of the pit, and carried 
to market for the use of the soap and glass makers. 
There is great difference in the goodness and price of 
this commodity, and much care and skill required in 
properly making it. That is esteemed the host which is 
hardest, finest grained, and free from sand or earth. 
So great a value is set upon this Fncus by the inhabit¬ 
ants of that, place, that thoy have sometimes thought it 
worth their while to roll fragments of rocks and huge J 
stoues into the sea, in order to invite the growth of it. \ 
Its virtues in the medical way have been much cele¬ 
brated by Dr. Russell, in his “ Dissertation concerning 
the Use of Sea-Water in the Diseases of the Glands.’’ | 
Tie found the saponaceous liquor or mucus in the I 
vesicles of this plant to be an excellent resolvent, j 
extremely serviceable in dispersing nil scorbutic and 
scrophulous swellings of the glands. He recommends j 
the patient to rub the tumour with these vesicles bruised j 
in his hand, till the mucus has thoroughly penetrated j 
the part, and afterwards to wash with sea-water. Or j 
otherwise, to gather two pounds of the tumid vesicles, I 
in the month of July, when they are full of mucus, and 
infuse them in a quart of sea-water, in a glass-vessel, 
for the space of fifteen days, when the liquor will have 
acquired nearly the consistency of honey. Then strain 
it off through a linen cloth, and rub this liquor with the 
hand, as before, three or four times a day, upon any hard 
or scrophulous swellings, washing the parts afterwards 
with sea-water, and nothing can be more efficacious to 
disperse them. Even sehirrosities, he says, in women’s 
breasts have been dispelled by this treatment. The same 
author, by calcining the plant in the open air, made a 
very black salt powder, which lie called Vegetable 
/Ethiops, a medicine much in use as a resolvent and 
deobstruent, and recommended also as an excellent 
dentifrice, to correct the scorbutic laxity of the gums, 
and take off the foulness of the teeth.” 
Fucns esculentus and F. saccchannus are eaten when 
boiled; but the leaves of F. lanceolatus, F. holosetaceus, 
and Fpinnatifidus being crisp, are eaten as a salad 
uncooked. The Gulf Weed, F. natans, is made into a 
pickle with vinegar, and is eaten as a salad between the 
tropics, when compounded with lemon-juice, Capsicums, 
and other stimulants. As long since as from the time 
of Queen Elizabeth, as is related by old Gerarde, “they 
use the Grass Wrack in Italy and other hot countries, to 
pack up glasses with, to keep them from breaking;” and 
he adds, as if the result of a perilous journey, “ Going, 
in company with divers London Apothecaries to find 
simples, as far as Margate, in the Isle of Thanet,” 
he found two Sea Weeds; “they there call them Sea 
Girdles, which name well befits the single one; and 
the divided one they may call Sea Hangers ( Lami¬ 
naria digitata), for if you do hang the tops down¬ 
wards they do reasonably well resemble the old- 
fashioned Sword-hangers. They are of a glutinous 
substance, and a little saltish taste, and divers have told 
me they are good meat, being boiled tender, and so 
eaten with butter, vinegar, and pepper.” The Red 
Leathery fucns ( Hahjmenia edulis) is eaten, after being 
pinched with allot iron, then tasting like roasted oysters. 
The stalks of Chordaria filum, or Sea Laces, are skinned 
when half dry, and twisted by the Highlanders, and can 
then be made into baskets, and used for other purposes, 
where a strong fibre is required. 
We might enumerate abundance of uses to which 
many other of the species are applied, but we will only 
add one more quality possessed by them in common, 
showing that not one of these marine plants is in its 
wrong place, for one and all give out oxygene during 
the whole period of their growth, and thus infuse that 
gas throughout the ocean waters, without which gas no 
animal could live benoath their surface. 
These prefatory notes are more lengthy than our text 
needed, for it is no more than this inquiry from the 
coast of Sussex :—“ I have lately acquired the property, 
here, and find large quantities of Sea-weeds all along 
my portion of the sea wall; what can 1 best do with 
them?” The simple reply is—Use them as a manure; 
but as many of our other readers may be as uninformed 
of the best mode of employing this portion of the sea’s 
riches, as is our clerical friend in Sussex, we will jot 
down the results of some actual experience of the value 
of Sea Weeds as a manure. 
We knew a garden, near Southampton, that for several 
years produced abundant crops of excellent vegetables 
without having any other manure than Sea-weeds. This 
is no subject for surprise, because they contain much 
nitrogene, carbon (charcoal), and salts, not only useful 
to plants but absorbing moisture from the air, and 
destructive of vermin. M. Sprengel states, “The 
Bladder Fucns (Fucns vesiculosus) contains only six¬ 
teen per cent, of water, and 1000 lbs. of it when dry 
contain .‘13 lbs. of chlorates of lime, soda, and magnesia; 
0-L lbs. of gypsum (sulphate of lime), and 30 lbs. of 
phosphate of lime. It contains, also, a great quantity 
of nitrogene, all explaining fully its high manuring 
properties.” 
