SEAWEEDS.
1. Laminaria digitata.
2. L. longicruris.
To return to the gathering of seaweeds by farmers, nowhere is it more customary than in some parts of New England. Thus the well-known Second Beach, just east of Newport, is in the fall of the year the scene of a vast activity in this direction. “It may easily happen,” we are told, “that the pilgrim to Whitehall, topping the hill on a brilliant autumn morning, shall come upon a scene in which quiet plays no part. The seaweed, that harvest which, ripening without labor, is neither bought nor sold, is setting inshore under the urgings of wind and tide, and scores of farmers have crowded to the spot to gather it. An artist could hardly wish a better subject for his pencil than one of these wild harvestings—the plunging horses, forced far out into the surf, their slow return, half swimming, half wading, dragging the heavily loaded rakes which leave behind them a long furrow of foam, the heaped-up kelp glistening in the sunshine, the oxen, yoked by fours, waiting for their load, the shouts of the men, the dash, the excitement, and beyond and above all, the wonderful blues and iridescent greens which are the peculiar property of Newport waters and the Newport sky.”
Cattle and horses that are accustomed to rough pastures, like the Scotch and Irish moors, eat seaweed and thrive on it, especially as winter fodder, and from several species are derived dishes for our own tables. The Irish moss, or carrageen,—which is not a moss at all, but a seaweed,—is the most important of these, and grows on both sides of the northern Atlantic. In England the market supply comes chiefly from the western coast of Ireland, while Massachusetts Bay gives America all that is wanted, principally the red, coral-like Chondrus crispus. The little port of Scituate, Massachusetts, is the chief point of supply, where many thousands of pounds are gathered. In early June, two or three hundred men and women go to the rocks at low tide and pick off the small brown plants, each man getting about a barrel in one day’s work. When the tide rises, the people get into small boats and pull up the moss with rakes.
The moss gathered each day is taken to the beach, where a gravelly space has been prepared, and is spread out to lie bleaching during all of the next day, when it is taken up, washed in tubs, and again spread out. The washing and drying in the sun continue for seven days, by which time it has bleached to a yellowish white. In cookery, jellies, blanc mange, and various methods of boiling in milk and mixing in soups are used to make it palatable. Besides being of value for food, carrageen serves to make sizing used by paper-makers, cloth-printers, hatters, and so on, to clarify beer in the brewery vats, as a medicine, and to make bandoline for stiffening the hair.
Other species beside the Irish moss serve as food in Europe, generally in a raw state, often proving the only salty relish which the Irish peasant has to eat with his potatoes. One of these is the dulse of the Scotch (the dillisk of Ireland), which also abounds in the Mediterranean, and is there made into a soup. The natives of the South Sea Islands eat algæ, which are extraordinarily abundant and varied in Oriental latitudes; and the poor among the Japanese and in the interior of China, where the weed is sent dried, prize it especially, because it has a sea flavor and saves salt, which with them is a costly luxury. These people mix it with vegetables and other materials, to form thick, delicious soups and dressings. A peculiarly bad-smelling sauce, prepared from seaweed, is among the exports China sends to Europe as a condiment.
Along the shores from Japan to Sumatra grows an alga which the natives of those coasts dry and keep as long as they please. When the substance is wanted they steep some of the dried pieces in hot water, where the weed dissolves, and then, having been taken off the fire, stiffens into a glue which is said to be the strongest cement in the world.
A kind of false isinglass, also, is a product of the Eastern seaweeds, and it not only enters into the pastry and confectionery of Chinese bakers, but serves to varnish and glue thin paper and to stiffen the light transparent gauzes of fine silk used in making Oriental screens, fans, hangings, etc., so that painters can decorate them. With a poorer quality the bamboo stretchers of paper umbrellas, lanterns, and various toys are smeared to give them hard and polished surfaces.
Seaweed has also been used in the manufacture of paper, and its complete success in this branch of industry is as yet hindered only by the difficulty of perfect bleaching. Certain species of it are utilized in enormous quantities by upholsterers as stuffing for sofas, chairs, and mattresses; in Japan it is formed into a substitute for window-glass; ornaments and small articles of use, like knife-handles, are made by several nations out of large dried seaweeds; and, finally, albums of preserved fronds are one of the prettiest things to be found in a naturalist’s cabinet.
The great majority of seaweeds grow between tide-marks, and they undoubtedly perform an important service in preventing the wear and tear of the coast in many situations. Some, however, grow in much deeper waters, and these, also, may serve as breakwaters of no mean strength. Such is the case, for instance, at San Pedro, near Los Angeles, California, where the abundant growth offshore forms such a barrier to the ocean rollers as to turn the open roadstead into a calm harbor within it.