of Salt in Horticulture, 57 



ment to corn and other vegetables, and renders kingdoms rich 

 and fertile, where it happens to abound in the soil." p. 158. 



Mr. Hollingshead, a gentleman of considerable fortune, who 

 resided near Chorley in Lancashire, and spent many years in 

 making experiments on the application of common salt as a 

 manure, and who also made powerful efforts to obtain a repeal 

 of the salt laws, published a few years before his death, a very 

 interesting pamphlet on the subject. In this work, to which I 

 am greatly indebted for much useful information, he relates, 

 that " when foul salt was permitted to the farmers duty-free, 

 a person near Middlewich in Cheshire trenched his garden in 

 autumn, mixing with the soil a quantity of foul salt. The 

 following spring, it was dug or delved in the usual method, 

 and planted with potatoes. The crop produced therefrom' 

 was such as far exceeded his most sanguine expectations. 

 Twenty of the potatoes were produced, which weighed sixty 

 pounds." 



Several other testimonies to the beneficial effects of common 

 salt in the culture of the potato might be produced, but I re- 

 collect none so decisive as that of the Reverend Dr. Cartwright, 

 which is published in the fourth volume of the Communications 

 to the Board of Agriculture. 



Having previously prepared a piece of land for the experi- 

 ments, on the 14th of April 1804, a portion of the land was 

 laid out in beds of one yard wide and forty yards long, twenty- 

 four of which were manured in different ways ; one of the beds 

 had no manure, and fifteen of the beds had salt put upon them, 

 in the proportion of a quarter of a peck to each bed. On the 

 same day the whole was planted with potatoes, a single row in 

 each bed ; and that the experiment might be conducted with 

 all possible accuracy, the same sets were planted in each bed. 

 On the 21st of September, the potatoes were taken up, and 

 the produce of each row was accurately ascertained; from 

 which it appeared, that in every instance excepting one, where 

 the salt was used, the crop was found to be superior ; so that, 

 of ten different manures, most of which are of known and ac- 

 knowledged efficacy, salt proved superior to them all, one only 



