Barrack, used to store hay. sketch by Vicki Allen Cook Farmyard manure was used on the fields ??? no chemical fertilisers then ??? and also kelp, which was washed up on shore after a storm, and gathered with horse and cart; it was said to be particularly good for potatoes. Mussel mud was a most valuable fertiliser, combining lime from the shells with rich silt. It was dug through the ice from bays and estuaries during the winter, using a horse-powered scoop, mounted on a wooden frame with a windlass and derrick. Each scoopful brought up about two hundredweight of mud, and eight scoops made a load, tipped into sleighs lined up on the ice. Charles Burt and Will Ross of Stanhope dug mud at Oyster Bed Bridge in the 1920 s and 30 s, using a scoop with a gasoline engine, scooping the mud into scows in the summer, and through the ice into sleighs or wagons in the winter. Cash and carry was 20$ to 25$ a load, the customer hauling it away himself. Mud was dug through the ice of in a small way by various residents, but there were relatively few mussel or oyster shells here, so the mud was of inferior quality to that of Oyster Bed Bridge . Mussel mud was a very long acting fertiliser; one could tell, 30 years later, which of two adjacent fields had been treated with mussel mud ??? the crop on that field was still superior to that on the untreated one. The later history of agriculture in Stanhope did not differ much from that of other Island districts. One fairly unusual crop was the cranberry, which grows well along the North Shore ; most farms had 41