Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/76

64 expectation, and will likely become a source of wealth to farmers living on such parts of the seacoasts where they can be taken with ease and in great abundance. These fish abound with oil and blood more than any other kind of their size. They are not used for food, except by negroes in the West India Islands." This is absolute proof of the recognition of the value of menhaden



for fertilizing purposes one, two, and nearly three centuries ago. But we have even stronger early testimony in the letter of President D wight, of Yale College, who in 1804 writes: "No manure is so cheap as this, . . . none is so rich, and few so lasting. Its effects on vegetation are prodigious. Lands which