Part Two: The Sargasso

For years, “sargasso” (seaweed) linked land and sea and enabled this rather sandy terrain to be cultivated, for farmers were also seamen, who harvested the natural fertilizer. In the summer seaweed was collected for drying and storing in “haystacks” that were scattered across the countryside like small Lilliputian villages made up of dozens of seaweed structures covered with small, straw roofs. The seaweed was then spread on the land at the beginning of the next period of cultivation. Nowadays, much less seaweed is collected apart from a selective choice made for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.