_Sea-weeds._—Among green manures, the use of fresh sea-ware deserves especial mention, from the remarkably fertilizing properties it is known to possess, as well as from the great extent to which it is employed on all our coasts. The produce of the isle of Thanet in Kent is said to have been doubled or tripled by the use of this manure; the farms on the Lothian coasts are said to be let for 20s. or 30s. more rent when they have a right of way to the sea, where the weed is thrown on shore; and in the Western Isles the sea-ware, the shell-marl, and the peat-ash, are the three great natural fertilizers to which the agriculture of the district is indebted for the comparative prosperity to which it has in some of the islands already attained. Sea-weeds decompose with great ease when collected in heaps or spread upon the land. During their decay, they yield not only organic food to the plant but saline matters also, to which much of their efficacy both on the grass and the corn crops is no doubt to be ascribed. 2. _Manuring with dry Vegetable Matter._—Almost every one knows that the saw-dust of most common woods decays very slowly—so slowly, that it is rare to meet with a practical farmer who considers it worth the trouble of mixing with his composts. This property of slow decay is possessed in a certain degree by all _dry_ vegetable matter. Heaps of dry straw alone, or even mixed with earth, will ferment with comparative difficulty and with great slowness. It is necessary, therefore, to mix it, as is usually done, with some substance that ferments more readily, and which will impart its own condition to the straw. Animal matters of any kind, such as the urine and droppings of cattle, are of this character; and it is by admixture with these that the straw which is trodden down in the farm-yard is made to undergo a more or less rapid fermentation. The object of this fermentation is twofold—first, to reduce the particles of the straw to such a minute state of division, that they may admit of being diffused through the soil; and, second, that the dry vegetable matter may be so changed by exposure to the air, and other agencies, as to be fitted to yield both organic and inorganic food to the roots of the plants it is intended to nourish. We have seen that this decomposition takes place very speedily, and of its own accord, when the vegetable matter is green, but that it can be _induced_ or brought on in the case of dry straw by the agency of animal matter. The same means will cause the fermentation of any other vegetable substance which is in a minute state of division. Even saw-dust made into a compost heap with soil or sods, and watered regularly and copiously with the liquid manure of the farm-yards, may be thus converted into a fertilizing vegetable mould.