-Graziers of Great Britain. 347 
friendly and beneficent to all creatures endowed with life, whether 
it be vegetative or animal.” 
‘In some parts of Great Britain, particularly in the neighbour- 
hood of the salt works, the value ef common'salt, ‘as a manure, 
is well known and acknowledged ; and it has lately been given in 
evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons, 
by a gentleman of the highest credit, that the farmers in Corn- 
wall are so convinced of the value of salt as a manure*, that - 
_ whenever the waste salt that has been employed in curing fish is 
on sale, there is a violent contention among the occupiers of the 
land, who shall obtain the largest share. The'same gentleman 
informed the committee, that where wheat or barley has followed 
turnips, on land which had been salted, the ensuing crop has in- 
variably escaped the mildew, although that disease had affected 
all the corn upon-the Jands immediately adjoining, on which’ salt 
had not been used. 
The efficacy of salt in destroying noxious weeds, grubs, worms, 
flies, and insects, is well known in many districts, and those who 
are incredulous may very easily satisfy themselves by direct ex- 
periment. For instance, if a few common earth worms be taken 
out of the ground, and sprinkled with a'little’salt, they will be 
seen to writhe about for a few minutes, and then expire. ‘Thus 
salt does, as it were, perform two operations at once; for, by de- 
stroying the worms and the weeds, while the land lies fallow, it 
prepares the ground most effectually for the reception of the corn 
or the plants, before it can possibly take any effect upon the crop 
itself. And besides this peculiar advantage, the extreme luxu- 
riance and verdure which common salt gives to grass lands, when 
properly applied, would be so satisfactory to such farmers who 
would make use of it, and so convincing to all the neighbouring 
agriculturists of every description, that if only one or two gentle- 
men in each district were to employ it in a few instances, I'am 
certain this mode of top-dressing+ would very soon engage the 
attention of every person in the empire, who had even but a gar- 
den to manage and cultivate. 
From 
* There is also a practice in Cornwall of manuring the lands with sea- 
sand for the sake of the salt that it contains ; and so very efficacious is this 
found to be, that a writer, ninety years azo, computed the money laid out 
in that and the adjoining county for sea-sand to amount to thirty-two thou- 
sand pounds pet annum; and so much has this practice increased of late 
years, that Dr. Paris considers “ the expense of land-carriage for sand used 
as a manure in Cornwall alone as now ataounting at least to thirty thousand 
pounds annually.” 
41 think it necessary to remark, that where salt is used as a top-dressing 
for grass land, the quantity employed ought to be much less than is com- 
monly used for ground that is to be afterwards ploughed for a crop of grain. 
Six bushels, or three hundred and thirty-six pounds of rock-salt, ground 
very 
