Mr. Johnson on Saline Manures. 317 



Crops growing on salteJi ground, it should be remembered, very 

 rarely suffer by frost or sudden transitions in the temperature 

 of the atmosphere. 



In 1827 a bed of early peas in the garden of Richard Francis, 

 Esq., of Droitwich, in Worcestershire, clearly demonstrated this 

 important fact. Half the bed had been salted at the rate of 

 twenty bushels an acre, the previous year ; the peas growing on 

 the salted portion were gathered full three weeks before the 

 others were ripe, and yielded five or six times as much. 



The farmers of the coasts of Devon and Cornwall employ, 

 as a manure, large quantities of saline sand, which they get 

 from the sea-shore at low water. The same practice prevails 

 in the north of Norfolk. 



Sea-weed is used in considerable quantities by the farmers 

 of the coast of Suffolk and in the Isle of Thanet ; this manure 

 ought, however, to be ploughed in immediately it is brought on 

 to and spread on the soil, and not mixed with the farm-yard 

 dung. In Cheshire, they cart large quantities of sea-mud" or 

 " sludge " on to their lands ; and in Herefordshire, they apply 

 considerable quantities of salt to their cyder orchards. 



The Cornish farmers buy, with great avidity, the refuse salt 

 of the pilchard fishery ; and although it was objected at a late 

 meeting of the Bath and West of England Society, that such 

 salt might owe all its fertilizing qualities to the oily matters of 

 the fish, yet such an objection is completely answered by the 

 fact, that the Cornish farmers will give more money for the salt 

 which has been only once used in salting pilchards, than for 

 that which has been twice employed for the same purpose, and 

 consequently contains much more oil and other animal matters. 



Sprats and other fish, though not strictly saline manures, are 

 generally found to contain a considerable quantity of common 

 salt and other saline matters ; and they might be used to a 

 much larger extent than at present, and as a manure may ge- 

 nerally be procured at a cheap rate. 



The general employment of this manure in poor inland dis- 

 tricts, where it would be most valuable to the farmer, is re- 

 tarded by their speedy putrefaction, distance from the coast, &c. 



If, however, the fishermen were to mix them with one-fourth 

 their weight of lime, they would then form a rich saponaceous 



APRIL— JULY, 1828. Y 



