298 Soda- Salts in Agriculture. 



firmed my opinion by stating that when their lambs have been 

 supplied with beans or peas, combined with cake and bran, their 

 Hocks have enjoyed immunity from this disease ; whereas, when 

 the cereal grains have been substituted for the leguminous seeds, 

 the flocks upon the same farms have been aflfected. But in all 

 cases a veterinary surgeon should be consulted, as only a scientific 

 man and one thoroughly conversant with disease can properly 

 judge what medicinal and dietary treatment can be most advan- 

 tageously employed in the different stages of the disease. 



In conclusion, may I be permitted to remark, that if the agri- 

 culturist has sometimes occasion to complain of the incompetence 

 of the veterinary surgeon when called upon to treat his sheep, the 

 farmer himself is chiefly to blame, for he does not employ the 

 professional man to treat the common run of diseases whicli affect 

 his flock, and consequently does not enable him to obtain a 

 general knowledge of their constitution. Only when disease in 

 an unusual form devastates the flock are his services required, 

 and then he is expected to treat promptly, scientifically, and suc- 

 cessfully animals with which he is so little acquainted. Even 

 then his aid is not sought till the nostrums of the shepherd and 

 the empirical cordials of the druggist have been exhausted, and 

 many of the survivors in the diminished flock are beyond the 

 reach of medical treatment. 



Alfreton, Derbyshire. 



XXIII. — On the Functions of Soda- Salts in Affriculture. 



By Dr. Augustus Yoelcker. 



Ty an agricultural point of view soda and its salts ai'e far less 

 important fertilising agents than potash and its saline combina- 

 tions. 



The published ash-analyses of every variety of agricultural 

 produce show that all cultivated plants without exception con- 

 tain much more potash than soda. This is not due merely to 

 accident, or, as might be supposed, to a wider and more abundant 

 distribution of potash than of soda in the mineral kingdom, 

 for the rule holds good even when plants are grown on soils in 

 which the proportion of soda greatly exceeds that of potash. 

 It matters not what the composition of the soil is on which a 

 crop of wheat, oats, turnips, &c., is raised ; invariably the 

 amount of soda in the ashes of these and other plants will be 

 found to be quite insignificant in relation to that of potash. 



Plants appear to have not only the power of taking up potash 



