[94] 



On Salt as a Manure, By diaries Feirce, 



Germantown^Nov, I2th^ 1819. 



My dear sir, 



I HAVE perused, with pleasure and profit, the inter= 

 esting pamphlet which you were pleased to put into my 

 hands a few days since, containing *' A letter to the far- 

 mers and graziers of Great Britain, on the use of salt 

 in the various branches of agriculture, and in feeding all 

 kinds of farming stock, &c., by Samuel Parkes." Many 

 of the observations, together with the recitals of his expe- 

 riments, I am satisfied, from my own experience, are 

 correct, inasmuch as they are founded upon the same 

 principle in the improvements of agriculture, which I 

 have pursued for several years. In the course of the last 

 year I made some new experiments with salt, not only 

 as a manure, but also to try its effects upon a lot of 

 ground which had the preceding years been so overrun 

 and infested with those destructive vermin the ground- 

 mice and grub- worm, that my corn plants, when young, 

 were cut up, forcing me to plant them a second, and 

 even a third time ; and in the fall, when taking up my 

 potatoes, beets, and parsnips, I found them to be nearly 

 half devoured, but I have had the happiness to find that 

 the salt so completely annihilated them, that not one of 

 either kind has since been discovered in or about the lot 

 since it was strewed thereon. The quantity which I used, 

 was about at the rate of four bushels to the acre. It was 

 strewed over the ground in the month of March, and laid 

 upon the surface of the earth a week or ten days previous 

 to its being ploughed and harrowed. In the month of 



