340 SALT, NITEATE OF SODA, SALTS OF AMMONIA, ETC. 



in chlorides. The grass of a meadow, which has been 

 manured with common salt, is eaten by cattle with greater 

 relish, and preferred to any other, so that even from this 

 point of view common salt deserves attention as a manure. 



As that part of the action of nitrate of soda, sea-salt, 

 and salts of ammonia, which consists in effecting the dis- 

 tribution in the soil of other elements of food, may con- 

 sequently be replaced by careful tillage, the effect pro- 

 duced upon the crops by these salts affords a pretty safe 

 indication of the condition of a field. If all other circum- 

 stances are the same, their effect will be much less marked 

 upon a well tilled field than upon one not in the same 

 condition. 



Gypsum. — Among the recent investigations respect- 

 ing the action of gypsum on clover,* those made by 



* That excellent and most ably conducted agriculttiral joumal, 

 ' Zeitschrift des landwirtlischaftliclien Vereins fur Ehein. Preussen,' 

 contains, in Nos. 9 and 10, September and October 1861, p. 352, the 

 following statement about the remarkable fertility of a field for clover : — 



'Twenty-three years ago Farmer Kirfield, of Rhon, in the hundred of 

 Antweiler, Aldenau district (volcanic Eifel mountains), sowed a plot of 

 land, said to abound in broken shells, with esparsette. For ten years 

 he obtained good hay crops, and abimdant after-grass. After this time 

 a good deal of grass began to make its appearance among the esparsette. 

 To destroy this Mr. Kirfield had his field deeply haiTowed in spring, 

 with iron harrows across the ridges, and then sown over again with 

 8 pounds of red clover seed. The red clover grew up splendidly with 

 the esparsette, and gave for three years rimning two full crops per 

 annum. At the end of the third year the land was again deeply har- 

 rowed and sown anew with 8 pounds of red clover seed. It gave 

 again for three years running two full crops per annum of an excellent 

 mixture of esparsette and red clover. The same operation was re- 

 peated twice after with the same success, so that the field has now for 

 twenty-two years, consecutively, borne clover ; that is to say, the first 

 ten years esparsette alone, the following twelve years esparsette with 

 red clover.' 



It would be interesting to get a proper analysis of this soil, with 

 especial regard to its absorptive power for potash and phosphate of 

 lime. 



