346 A Letter to the Farmers and 
measure, I shall proceed to give you a simple outline of the ge- 
neral view which I have taken of the subject. It may, however, 
be necessary to premise, that my opinions thereon have been 
formed in consequence of a careful investigation of a great num- 
ber of well-attested experiments, and from the perusal of “that 
body of evidence which was delivered in the year 1817 before the 
Lords of His Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council, at the 
Board of Trade; and again in the spring of the following year, 
before a select committee of the House of Commons ; which 
committee was occupied from day to day, from the sixtéenth of 
March to the fifteenth day of May, in questioning the witnesses, 
and in recording their respective testimonies upon this most im- 
portant proposition. 
From an attentive examination of all* these documents, and 
from a dispassionate consideration of every thing which Ihave 
been able to collect upon this great object, I am decidedly of 
opinien thatrock-salt, at the reduced duty of five pounds’ per 
ton, is by far the cheapest, the most efficacious, and the most 
convenient manure for arable and pasture land, that can possibly 
be obtained. 
More than one hundred and fifty years ago, Sir Hugh Platt, 
an eminent writer of that day, speaks very decidedly of the be- 
nefits which might be derived from the practice of sprinkling 
common salt upon land, and calls it the sweetest, the cheapest, 
and the most philosophical marle of all'others. He ‘relates the 
ease of a man, who, in passing over a creek on the sea-shore, 
suffered his sack of seed-corn to fall into the water, and that it 
lay there until it was low tide, when, being unable to buy more 
seed, he sowed that which had lain in the salt-water; and when 
the harvest time arrived he reaped a crop far superior to any in 
the neighbourhood. The writer, however, adds, that it was sup- 
posed the corn would not fructify in that manner unless it actually 
fell into the sea by chance ; and therefore, neither this man nor 
any of his neighbours ever ventured to make any further use of 
salt-water. 
The same curious author tells us also of a man who sowed 
a bushel of salt, /ong since, upon a small plot of barren ground 
on Clapham Common, and that to that day (the time when he 
was writing) it remained more fresh and green than any of the 
ground round about it.’ 
The eminent Dr. Brownrigg, who wrote in the year 1748, iu 
speaking of common salt, says “ it is dispersed over all nature ; 
it is treasured up in the bowels of the earth ; it impregnates the 
ocean ; it descends in rains; it fertilizes the soil; it arises in 
vegetables ; and from them is conveyed into animals ; so that 
it may well be esteemed the universal condiment of nature ; 
friendly 
