SALT— A FERTILIZER. 



BY C. N. BEMENT. 



We take pleasure in transferring to the col- 

 umns of the Faumkrs' Library, from the 

 American duarterly Journal of Agriculture, the 

 following valuable article on the use of Salt as a 

 Manure : 



The value of salt for agricultural purposes has 

 long been known, both in Europe and in this 

 country ; and why it has not been more gener- 

 ally used is beyond my comprehension. More 

 than one hundred and fifty years ago, Sir Hugh 

 Plait, an eminent writer of that day, speaks very 

 decidedly of the benefits which might be de- 

 rived from the practice of sprinkling salt upon 

 land, and calls it the " sweetest and cheapest. 

 and the most philosophical of all others." He 

 relates the case of a man who, in passing over a 

 creek on the seashore, 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 

 purchase more seed, he sowed t^t which had 

 been in the salt water, and, ■when the harvest 

 time arrived, he reaped a crop far superior to 

 any in the neighborhood. The writer adds, 

 however, that it ■was supposed the corn ^vould 

 not fructify in that manner unless it actually fell 

 into the water by chance ; and, therefore, neither 

 this man nor any of his neighbors ever ventured 

 to make any farther use of salt water. 



The same curious writer tells al.so of a man 

 who sowed a bushel of salt, long since, upon a 

 small plot of barren ground, and that to that day 

 (the time he was writing) it remained more 

 fresh and green than any of the ground round 

 about it. 



Dr. Brownrig, who wrote more than a centitry 

 ago, in speaking of salt says, " it is dispersed 

 over all Nature ; it is treasured up in the bowels 

 of the earth; it impregnates the ocean; it de- 

 scends in rains ; it fertilizes the soil ; it arises in 

 vegetables ; and from them is conveyed into ani- 

 mals." 



In the neighborhood of the salt works in Great 

 Britain, the value of salt as a manure is well 

 known and acknowledged ; " that when wheat 

 and barley have followed turnips, on land ^vhich 

 had been salted, the ensuing crop has invariably 

 escaped mildew, alihough that disease had af- 

 fected all the grain upon the lands adjacent, on 

 which salt had not been used." 



It has been asserted that salt is the mother of 

 all manures, as every kind of manure is higher 

 or lower in value according to the salt it produ- 

 ces ; and every kind of manure is portioned out 

 to the land according to the quantity of salt or 

 nitre it is thought to contain. 



"Nothing in Nature," said Hollingshead, "is 

 so powerful as -salt to meliorate strong and stiff 

 soils, and also to give moi.sture to dry ground ; it 

 is also a certain destruction to weeds and in- 

 sects. Besides its efficacy on corn and fallow- 

 ground, its excellent qualities, in giving luxvi- 

 riance and salubrity to grass lands, are peculiar- 

 ly worthy the attention of the grazing and breed- 

 ing of cattle." 

 11121) 



" Soils," says an old writer, " which are sub- 

 ject to the grub, and must be fertilized by com- 

 mon dung, which is a proper nest for the mother- 

 beetle to deposit its eggs, must be well impreg- 

 nated with the brine of dissolved salt, after the 

 dung is first cut up." 



The efficacy of salt in destroying noxious 

 weeds, grubs, and insects, is well known, in all 

 parts, but a dose sufficient to kill weeds, would 

 also destroy the cultivated crops; therefore, great 

 attention and caution should be taken in not ap- 

 plying too much when intended to fertilize the 

 soil. 



As to the quantity of salt which it would be 

 advisable to use per acre, for the respective 

 crops and upon the diflerent kinds of land, will 

 be best learned by instituting a set of experi- 

 ments upon evei-y distinct species of grain and 

 roots. Cold, wet land requiring more, and loose, 

 light land, though it be poor, requiring less. — 

 Four bushels to the acre, harrowed "in after 

 plowing, has been found a sufficient quantity on 

 most soils, for corn and potatoes, but the best 

 way of all others for a.scertaining this point, 

 would be for every one to depend upon the re- 

 sults of his own experiments. 



To ascertain the exact quantity of salt which 

 may be necessary for the different kinds of land, 

 and to appreciate the benefits which result from 

 its employment in all the various modes of cul- 

 ture adopted in this country, will require several 

 long series of experiments ; we would, there- 

 fore, suggest to the Executive Committee of our 

 State Agricultural Society, that they offer re- 

 wards to such persons as shall give them an ac- 

 count of the best experiments with this mineral 

 substance, in the different branches of farming 

 and general Agriculture. 



The safest way for a farmer to adopt, is to use 

 his salt sparingly at first, and iu all cases to leave 

 a small portion of the same land without salt, so 

 that the real effects produced by the salt may be, 

 by comparison, in every instance, self-evident 

 and palpable. 



That salt is an excellent manure, experience, 

 the most satisfactory of all evidences, clearly 

 proves. 



It is stated in an English publication, that "a 

 farmer in the county of Sussex, some years since, 

 had a field, one part of which was very wet and 

 rushy, and that grass produced upon it was of 

 so sour and unpleasant a kind that the cattle 

 would not graze upon it ; he tried several meth- 

 ods to improve it, but to little purpose ; at last 

 having heard of the benefits of salt as a manure, 

 he determined to try that ; for which purpose he 

 procured a quantity of rock salt, which in a ran- 

 dom way, without any regard to the precise quan- 

 tity, he threw upon the rushy ground, fencing it 

 oft' from the other part of the field, the effect of 

 which was a total disappearance of every kind 

 of vegetation. In a short time, however, it pro- 

 duced the largest quantity of mushrooms ever 

 seen upon an equal space of ground in the coun- 

 try. These, iu the spring following, were sue- 



