1846.] Salt a Fertilizer. 77 



without manure. Crop good. The effects of the salt still very 

 apparent. Adjudged to be one third more potatoes where the 

 land was salted." 



" Spring of 1841, sowed apart of the lot to oats, the remainder 

 to potatoes and onions, without manure. The onions were a great 

 crop. The summer was very dry, but they did not suffer, while 

 other crops in this neighborhood, on similar soils, were nearly de- 

 stroyed by the drouth. The oats were a heavy crop, and much 

 lodged on the salted part. The clover grew well, and produced 

 a fine crop of fall feed. This I cannot account for, except by 

 supposing that the salt kept the land moist, or attracted moisture 

 from the atmosphere, as I know of no other piece of land in the 

 town that was well seeded last year; it was almost an entire fail- 

 ure; and the most of the land stocked down last spring has been 

 or will be plowed up in the spring to be seeded. 



" We sowed salt the same spring on a part of our meadow?. 

 The grass was evidently improved, the result satisfactory, and we 

 shall continue to use it on our meadows." 



At a farmers' conference meeting, held at Marcellus, Onondaga 

 county, in November last, Mr. Brown, President of the County 

 Agricultural Society, said, "he had used salt as a manure with 

 great benefit. He sows it broadcast upon wheat and grass at 

 the rate of three to five bushels to the acre. On grass he would 

 sow it in the fall — for wheat he would sow it just before the wheat 

 is sown. He found that three bushels of salt to the acre on his 

 wheat field, occasioned an increase of seventeen bushels of wheat 

 to the acre over that which had no salt. The soil was a strong 

 loam with a stiff subsoil." 



Cuthbert W. Johnson, a distinguished agricultural writer, 

 strongly recommends salt as a manure, at the rate of from ten to 

 twenty bushels to the acre, to be sown some two or three weeks 

 before the seed is put into the ground. He says the benefits are 

 as follows: 1st. When used in small quantities it promotes putre- 

 faction. 2d. By destroying grubs and weeds. 3d. As a constitu- 

 ent on direct food. 4th. As a stimulant to the absorbent vessels. 

 5th. By preventing injury from sudden transitions of temperature. 

 6th. By keeping the soil moist." 



