cost in pickup load lots from canneries and sea food processors.
However, in compost piles, large quantities of these materials
readily putrefy, make the pile go anaerobic, emit horrid odors, and
worse, attract vermin and flies. To avoid these problems, fresh
seafood wastes must be immediately mixed with large quantities of
dry, high C/N material. There probably are only a few homestead
composters able to utilize a ton or two of wet fish waste at one
time.

Oregonians pride themselves for being tolerant, slow-to-take-offense
neighbors. Along the Oregon coast, small-scale market gardeners will
thinly spread shrimp or crab waste atop a field and promptly till it
in. Once incorporated in the soil, the odor rapidly dissipates. In
less than one week.

_Fish meal_ is a much better alternative for use around the home. Of
course, you have to have no concern for cost and have your mind
fixed only on using the finest possible materials to produce the
nutritionally finest food when electing to substitute fish meal for
animal manures or oil cakes. Fish meal is much more potent than
cottonseed meal. Its typical nutrient analysis runs 9-6-4. However,
figured per pound of nutrients they contain, seed meals are a much
less expensive way to buy NPK. Fish meal is also mildly odoriferous.
The smell is nothing like wet seafood waste, but it can attract
cats, dogs, and vermin.

What may make fish meal worth the trouble and expense is that sea
water is the ultimate depository of all water-soluble nutrients that
were once in the soil. Animals and plants living in the sea enjoy
complete, balanced nutrition. Weston Price's classic book,