USE OF COMMON SALT AS A MANURE. 



345 



a granite country, and is further supported by the fact, that on the same 

 soil and field, ammoniacal liquor, which contains no alkali, produced a 

 still larger increase of produce. 



You will ucderstand, however, that all these attempted explanations 

 proceed upon the supposition that the experiments have been both 

 carefully made and faithfully recorded. 



7°. Chloride of Sodium or Common Salt. — The use of common salt 

 as a manure has been long recommended. In some districts it has been 

 highly esteemed, and is still extensively and profitably applied to the 

 land. It has, like many other substances, however, suffered in gene- 

 ral estimation fjjpm the unqualified terms in which its merits have been 

 occasionally extolled. About a century ago (1748J, Brownrigg* main- 

 tained that the whole kingdom might be enriched by the application of 

 common salt to the soil, and since his time its use has been at intervals 

 recommended in terms of almost equal praise. But these warm re- 

 commendations have led sanguine men to make large trials, which 

 have occasionally ended in disappointment, and hence the use of salt 

 has repeatedly fallen into undeserved neglect. 



It is certain that common salt has in very many cases been advanta- 

 geous to the growing croj). Some of the 'more carefully observed re- 

 sults which have hitherto been published, are contained in the follow- 

 ing table : 



But it is as certain that in many cases, when applied to the land, 

 common salt has failed to produce any sensible improvement of the 

 growing crop. And as failures are long remembered, and more gene- 

 rally made known than successful experiments, the fact of their fre- 

 quent occurrence has prevented the use of salt in many cases where it 

 might have been the means of much good. 



" On the art of making coffvnon salt, p. 158 (London, 1748). 



