SEASIDE GRAPE. 
per acre; and is Hable to prove comparatively 
inert if applied a second time to a piece of moss- 
land which it formerly fertilized. 
A judiciously formed compost of sea-ooze with 
whatever earths or other substances are most 
suited to the condition and wants of the soil to 
which it is to be applied, serves as an excellent 
top-dressing for either grass or wheat in winter, 
and acts very fertilizingly on thin poor pastures, 
and effects surprising improvement on almost 
every kind of garden soil. “ Sea-ooze, when ap- 
plied to land in tillage,” says Sir John Sinclair, 
“ ought to be mixed with the soil. as soon as pos- 
sible after being brought out of the water. One 
part of ooze and two parts of peat-moss, make an 
excellent compost. Of this, twenty cart-loads 
(about 14 cubic yard each) will produce an ex- 
cellent effect upon an acre of land for barley, 
or indeed any kind of grain. Peat, when 
drenched in sea-water, is to be preferred. When 
peat cannot be got, the ooze may be compounded 
with earth and other substances.” 
SEA-PARSNIP. See Sampurre (Pricxty). 
SHA-PIE. See Oyster-CarcueEr. 
SEA-REED. See Arunpo. 
SEA-ROCKET. See Caxine. 
SEA-SAND. See Sanp. 
SEA-SHELLS. See Suetts. 
SEASIDE BALSAM. See Croton. 
SEASIDE GRAPE,—botanically Coceoloba. A 
genus of ornamental, evergreen, tropical shrubs 
and trees, of the polygonum family. About 20 
species, varying in ordinary natural height from 
8 to about 90 feet, have been introduced to Bri- 
tain from the West Indies and the hot parts of 
Continental America; and several more are 
known. Their calyx is fleshy and coloured ; 
their fruit is berry-like and grows in clusters ; 
and the favourite habitat of some of the best 
known is the sea-board. Hence both the popu- 
lar name of seaside grape, and the botanical one 
of coccoloba,—the latter signifying “a lobed 
berry.” The fruit of some, though very astrin- 
gent, is eaten by the natives; and the wood of 
the tallest and bulkiest is used as timber. 
One of the smallest in size and earliest known 
may serve as a sufficient specimen of the whole. 
dian islands. Several stalks rise from each root, 
and attain a height of from 8 to 10 feet, and are 
garnished with foliage and clothed with a light 
brown smooth bark. The leaves are alternate, 
and stand on short footstalks, and are very thick 
and stiff and almost round, and have a diameter 
of from 5 to 7 inches, and are lucid green above 
and veined below. The flowers come out from 
the wings of the stalks in long slender bunches 
like those of the common currant, and have 
white six-parted petals, and are succeeded by 
purplish-red berries about the size of common 
grapes, each enclosing a nut of its own shape. 
SEASIDE OAT. See Unzona. 
_SEASON. One of the four great natural divi- 
This grows on the sandy shores of the West In- | 
SEA-WARE. 163 
sions of the year,—spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter. Ina general view, in reference to plants, 
spring is the season of germination; summer, of 
blooming; autumn, of fruiting or seeding; and 
winter, of repose. The natural periods and du- 
ration of any one season always differ more or 
less from those fixed artificially in the calendar, 
and sometimes differ very widely, and are far 
from being uniform in successive years. The 
stages of tillage and cultivation, therefore, ought 
to be regulated far more by the natural pheno- 
/mena of the seasons than by their mere calenda- 
rial divisions and dates. The word season is also 
used to designate the whole of the active period 
of one year, as distinguished from the inactive 
period, or the whole of the period between the 
sowing and reaping of an annual crop as distin- 
guished from the period of the ground being un- 
occupied. Jt is likewise used to denote the fit 
time of the year or the fit condition of things for 
the performing of any specific operation,—as the 
season for ploughing or for sowing,—the season 
for barking trees or for felling them. 
SHASONING. The rendering of food relish- 
able by the addition of some condimental sub- 
stance, or the maturing of a dead organic mate- 
rial for use by bringing it into a suitable and 
permanent condition. 
SEAVES. Rushes. 
overgrown with rushes. 
Seavy ground is ground 
But the expression is 
provincial, and, in a great degree, obsolete. 
SEA-WALEL. See Empankment. 
SEA-WARE. Fuci, together with intermixed 
substances, found in large quantities on the 
sea-shore, and used by farmers and gardeners 
as manure. ‘The fuci are described in the article 
Fucr; and one important economical purpose for 
which some of them were formerly employed, is 
noticed in the article Kenp. The fuci found 
still attached to the rocks are often called black 
/ware; and those found in a loose state, cast 
ashore after storms, are often called red ware or 
loose ware, or par excellence sea-ware ; and both 
kinds bear also the popular names of sea-weed, 
sea-wrack, and tangles. The substances usually 
intermixed with them are sea-water, shells, mol- 
luses, exuvize, and sand. 
The black ware may be cut and gathered in 
the same manner as in former years for kelp. 
It is not so easily acted on by moisture or the 
atmosphere as the red, and is longer in decom- 
posing either as a top dressing or as an incor- 
porated manure, and is not so suitable for any 
purposes which require promptitude and rapi- 
dity of fertilizing action ; yet 1t may be advan- 
tageously used either in decomposing moss, or 
in mixing with soil to make a compost, or in 
reducing stable dung and bringing it to a state 
of fermentation, or in littering cattle during a 
scarcity of straw ; and, in districts where it is in 
request at a considerable distance from the coast, 
or at other seasons of the year than spring or 
winter, it may be spread out on the shore to dry, 
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