THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 227 



SALT FOK WHEAT. 



Although my own experience is not in favor of the 

 application of salt to growing wheat, or to the soil 

 where wheat was sowed, I have reason to believe that, on 

 some kinds of soil, a dressing of salt has been, and may 

 be again, of great value to the growing crop. Yet, as 

 a general rule, I think salt will exert such a trivial in- 

 fluence on the productiveness of the land, that the small 

 increase will not defray the expense of purchasing and 

 sowing four to- eight bushels of salt per acre. The only 

 reliable way to satisfy any one on this point is by exper- 

 iment. If alternate strips be dressed with salt ; and 

 the straw keeps erect better, or the yield of grain should 

 prove to be heavier than where no salt is applied, no 

 more reliable proof will be required, to establish the 

 value of salt as a fertilizer. 



Many farmers will insist that a dressing of salt will 

 exterminate, or prevent the ravages of the wire-worm. 

 But I do not believe that one hundred bushels of salt 

 on an acre will have the least influence in repelling 

 wire-worms, cut-worms, or any other worms, as the ex- 

 ceedingly small quanity that would come in contact witli 

 the whereabouts of such worms, would not destroy vege- 

 tation of any kind. 



J. J. Mechi states that he knew a farmer in North- 

 amptonshire, whose wheat crops could scarcely ever be 

 kept from lodging, until he sowed a liberal dressing of 

 salt in his fields. He even went so far as to salt the 

 manure in his yards. He says it is a most singular fact, 

 that while salt tends to preserve animal substances, it 

 will decompose vegetable matter quite rapidly. 



Every farmer must test the efficacy of salt on his own 



