58 Parkes oti tlie Use 



excepted, viz.j chandlers* graves ; and that bed in which salt 

 and soot were combined, produced of all others, the best crop. 

 But the most singular circumstance, and that which has in- 

 duced me to submit the relation of this experiment to the 

 Society, is, that where salt was used, whether by itself or in 

 combination, the roots were entirely free from the scabbiness 

 to wliich potatoes are often liable, and from which none of the 

 other beds were altogether exempt, although there were in the 

 same field nearly forty beds of potatoes, besides those which 

 were planted for the sake of these experiments. 



In the culture of the turnip, salt is also very efficacious. In 

 the twenty-seventh volume of the Annals of Agriculture is a 

 paper communicated by Davies Giddy, Esq., President of the 

 Penzance Agricultural Society, which contains an account of 

 some very important experiments on this subject. At Michael- 

 mas 1790, Mr. Sickler, a member of the Society, entered upon 

 an estate, so much impoverished by the former tenant, as 

 scarcely to return the value of the seed. In the spring of 1791, 

 Mr. Sickler prepared two acres for turnips, which had borne 

 seven crops of oats in succession. The last crop did not pro- 

 duce nine bushels on an acre. In the first week of April, the 

 earth from the ditches was carried into the field, and laid in four 

 piles ; each received three cart-loads of sea-shell sand, and five 

 bushels of salt. The earth from another ditch, chiefly consisting 

 of the decayed soil, which had been taken qflf the ground in 

 former tillage, was placed in three more piles, and each of these 

 received also three cart-loads of sand, but no salt, on account of 

 the apparent richness of the earth. Half the field was manured 

 with the four first piles ; but the three last not being sufficient 

 for the other half, what remained without manure was sown 

 with salt, at the rate often bushels to an acre. 



That part of the field where salt had been used, either mixed 

 with earth or alone, produced about half a crop of turnips, but 

 the crop totally failed where there was no salt. 



In 1792, three acres, which in 1791 had borne a crop of 

 wheat, not exceeding twelve bushels on an acre, were ploughed 

 before Christmas, and brought into fine tilth by midsummer fol- 



