no 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



Salt has been tried against farm-yard manure I 

 niter tbe rate of 15 tons per acre upon a liglii san- [ 

 dy soil, and no diHerence was observed in the; 

 crop ul" turnips. It has also been iriixed with the 

 peed o( turnips, and sown in drills at the rale of 

 14 busliels per acre, but the seed did not vegetate, 

 owinir, as it was supposed, to its beini; too closely 

 rombined wiih the salt; for the ground having 

 been again plouirhcd and harrowed, (re^h seed 

 was sown broadcast, which grew and flourished. 

 When top-dressed with salt ihey have also suc- 

 cee.'ed, though no efl'iict has been observed re- 

 garding their prevention oi" the fly; and wheti 

 ppread under Currow, the crop was eaten ofl' by 

 the beetle. t 



Although the experiments on the application of 

 ealt to meadow and pasture land generally agree 

 in their representation of improvement having 

 been thereby effected in the qualiiy of the her- 

 bage, yet we have to regret that they are so lew 

 and so inconclusive, as not to afford any decisive 

 proof either regarding the comparative weight of 

 «rops thus manured, the season in which it may 

 be the most advantageously applied, or the quan- 

 tity in which it should belaid on different soils. 

 In the Cheshire Report it is indeed said, that 

 eight bushels of refuse ealt, per acre, having been 

 spread, in the middle of October, on a piece of 

 sour rushy ground, and sixteen bushels on an- 

 other part, the vegetation in a short time disap- 

 peared totally ; and, in the month of April Ibl- 

 iowing, not a blade of grass was to be seen. Fn 

 the latter end of the month of May, however, a 

 most flourishing crop of rich grass made its ap- 

 pearance on that part where the eight bushels 

 had been laid ; in the month of July, the other 

 portion produced a still stronger crop; the cattle 

 were remarkably fond of it ; and during the 

 whole of the ensuing winter, and tor several 

 years, the land retained, and still exhibited at the 

 time this account was written, a superior verdure 

 to the surrounding closes.| This, however, pro- 

 bably alludes to pure salt ; for it is stated in Sir 

 Thomas Bernard's pamphlet, that sixteen bush- 

 els of foul salt having been laid, in the month of 

 April, upon a field, which, (or many years, had 

 borne a very dark-colored dry kind of grass, 

 which neither horses nor neat cattle could relish, 

 had ever since that time borne herbage which 

 was perllecily green, and upon which stock ofall 

 kinds throve remarkably. 



The statements of its effects upon the artijicinl 

 grasses are also too meager to be relied on, though 

 the application of six bushels of salt to an acre 



manures with which it was tried, as soot, from its 

 acrid and dry nature, may be supposed to require a 

 greater proportion of water to dilute it than those 

 substances which contain water already.' — Commu- 

 nications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. iv. p. 370. 



* Gardeners' Magazine, June 1828. 



t Cuthbert Johnson's Essay on Salt, 3d. edit., pp. 

 70, 72. 



I Holland's Survey of Cheshire, p. 238. 



of red clover, upon a good turnip soil, is said (o 

 have increased the produce, at the very least, 10 

 cwt. per acre ; the afiermath, also, proportionably 

 200(1, the cattle eating it down clos:e, and in pre- 

 ference to every other part of the field * Hay of 

 all kinds, when coarse, or injured by the wet of 

 an unfavorable season, has, however, been very 

 generally proved to be so lar improved in its 

 quality by the addition of a quantity not exceed- 

 ing about a peck of pure salt to a ton of hay, 

 thinly sprinkled over the layers in the slack, as 

 not merely to be rendered palatable to slock, but 

 in many cases to be consumed with even superior 

 relish. When the crop has been much exposed 

 to rain, it checks fermentation, and prevents 

 mouldinesst. 



We have refrained from reciting the arguments 

 which have been employed to urge the use of salt 

 as a manure, because we think it should rest 

 upon practical proofj rather than upon theory, 

 however specious ; yet we cannot help remarking 

 that corn grown in the neighborhood of the sea 

 is distinguished by its superiority of weight as 

 well as color ; and that salt marshes are known 

 to [lossess highly fattening properties when fed 

 by cattle. It is, therelbre, only reasonable to 

 suppose, that the application of salt to the land 

 may be productive of aimilar effects, and we have 

 taken the foregoing extracts chiefly from those 

 statements of experiments which have resulted 

 in its favor, because they hold out the promise of 

 its being advantageous: (or every kind of ma- 

 nure is of such great importance fo agriculture, 

 that we wish (o induce farmers who have not 

 already experienced its effects, to make repeated 

 comparative trials of it upon their own land. We 

 say repeated, because we are convinced that no- 

 thing short of a continued series of trials can be 

 decisive of its merits ; and comparative, because 

 in no other way can any safe conclusion be drawn 

 regarding its competition with other manure. We 

 must also remind them, that its cost is now so 

 trifling as to put it in every man's power to satisfy 

 himself of its value at a charge that is not worth 

 mentioning ; and that any one who fails to do 

 so must be regarded as seriously inattentive to his 

 own interests. 



It would, however, be unfair to withhold ail 

 that has been written in opposition to its use ; and 

 among those treatises which are best entitled to 

 attention on that side of the subject, are some 

 prize essays in the papers of the Highland Socie- 

 ty of Scotland, on 'Experiments with Salt as 

 Manure,' which, thoush they leave the question 

 of its value still in doubt, yet rather tend to throw 

 discredit upon its employment ; for, notwithstand- 

 ing one of these writers — who is a larmer of ex- 

 perience — expresses himself in support of it, yet 



* Cuthbert Johnson's Observations on Salt, &c., 

 1st edit., p. 10. 



t Sir Thomas Bernard on Salt, p. 276. Surveys of 

 the N. R. of Yorkshire, ]•>. 177 ; and of Derbyshire, 

 vol. ii. p. 182. 



