Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1917 — Seagoing Mowing Machine. [ARTICLE]

Seagoing Mowing Machine.

California now has a seagoing mowing machine. It is in use off the coast as a part of the government experiments to obtain potash from kelp. The curious craft has blades at the bow that cut the kelp from three to six feet below the surface of the water. A belt brings the severed kelp aboard, where other knives cut it up and other belts distribute It in the hold. The vessel harvests about two hundred tons a day, which when dried is reduced to 20 tons; that, In turn, yields about five tons of potash. The rise In the price of potash from S4O a ton to ten or more times that sum gives a new value to kelp, which grows in virtually unlimited quantities along our shores. Farmers have long used the kelp itself as a fertilizer. —Youth’s Companion.