SALT, COMMON. 



that the use of salt materially protracted the 

 existence of the plant. It is a common custom 

 with the importers of. exotic plants, to dip cut- 

 tings in salt-water. Before the adoption of this 

 plan, they almost invariably perished in the 

 passage. 



'Among the many excellent communications 

 with which I have been favoured on the use of 

 salt in the cultivation of plants, was one from 

 an eminent florist, near Paddington, Mr. Thos. 

 Hogg. " From the few experiments," he ob- 

 serves, " that I have tried with salt as a garden 

 manure, I am fully prepared to bear testimony 

 to its usefulness. In a treatise upon flowers, 

 published about 6 years since, I remarked, that 

 the application of salt, and its utility as a ma- 

 nure, was yet imperfectly understood. It is a 

 matter of uncertainty, whether it acts directly 

 as a manure, or only as a kind of spice or 

 seasoning, thereby rendering the soil a more 

 palatable food for plants. The idea that first 

 suggested itself to my mind arose from con- 

 templating the successful culture of hyacinths 

 in Holland. This root, though not indigenous 

 to the country, may be said to be completely 

 naturalized in the neighbourhood of Haerlem, 

 where it grows luxuriantly in a deep, sandy, 

 alluvial soil; yet one great cause of its free 

 growth, I considered, was owing to the saline 

 atmosphere : this induced me to mix salt in the 

 compost; and I am satisfied that no hyacinths 

 will grow well at a distance from the sea, with- 

 out it. I am also of opinion, that the numerous 

 bulbous tribes of amaryllidaceae, especially 

 those from the Cape of Good Hope, ixias, al- 

 liums, which include onions, garlic, shalots, &c., 

 anemones, various species of the lily, antho- 

 lyza, colchicum, crinum, cyclamens, narcissus, 

 iris, gladiolus, ranunculus, scilla, and many 

 others, should either have salt or sea-sand in 

 the mould used for them. I invariably use salt 

 as an ingredient in my compost for carnations; 

 a plant which, like wheat, requires substantial 

 soil, and all the strength and heat of the sum- 

 mer, to bring it to perfection ; and I believe I 

 might say, without boasting, that few excel me 

 in blooming that flower." 



In the inundations of the sea, as in Friesland, 

 for instance, in 1825, various curious effects 

 were produced by the salt-water. The oak, the 

 mulberry, pear, peach, and others with deep 

 roots, did not suffer; neither did the asparagus, 

 onions, celery, &c., for they were never finer, 

 or more luxuriant. But the vines and goose- 

 berries contracted a salt taste ; and the apricots, 

 apples, cherries, elms, poplars, beech, willows, 

 &c., could not bear the over-dose of sea-water. 

 They pushed out a few leaves, but speedily 

 perished. (Turner's Sacred Hist. p. 117.) Simi- 

 lar results were noticed, after an inundation 

 of the sea, in the garden of the late Richard 

 Gower, Esq., near Ipswich, in Suffolk, in No- 

 vember, 1824. In this instance a portion of 

 the garden remained 24 hours under the sea- 

 water. The asparagus beds were materially 

 improved in their produce. The cherry trees, 

 in the following year, produced a numerous 

 crop of cherries, which tasted, however, so very 

 salt that they could not be eaten, although very 

 fine in appearance. These trees all died in 

 972 



SALT, COMMON. 



the following year, 1826. (Johnson on the Ferti- 

 lizers, p. 374.) 



SALT, WITH OTHER MANURES. Salt and Lime. 

 With a mixture of salt and lime, a manure is 

 gradually formed of a most powerful descrip- 

 tion. It promises now, through the successful 

 example of Mr. Bennett and Sir C. Burrell, to 

 be veiy generally adopted. It is difficult to ac- 

 count for the neglect of this manure, on any 

 other ground than the difficulties which were 

 so long thrown in the farmer's way, by the long- 

 continued tax upon salt. That it is not a novel 

 plan for enriching the land is quite certain. 

 Glauber, a celebrated German chemist, one of 

 the last of the alchemists, described it in the 

 jargon of his craft nearly two centuries since , 

 when he said "The Salmirabilis (common salt), 

 as it is of itself, is, by reason of its corroding 

 virtues, which it as yet retains, plainly unfit 

 for the multiplication of vegetable, for that 

 being so used would prove more hurtful than 

 profitable. Upon this account it is necessary 

 that to one part of it be added two parts by 

 weight of the best calyx vine (lime), which 

 being moistened with water and made into 

 balls, are to be well heated red-hot for an hour, 

 that so all the corrosivity being introverted, the 

 sal mirabilis may be alkalizated, and used to 

 vegetables for an universal medicine : for it 

 conserves its attracting force, and loseth it not 

 in the heating red-hot." (Glauber's Works, by 

 Packc, pp. 2, 47.) 



Christopher Packe, who, in 1688, published 

 in English Glauber's folio volume, dwells at 

 considerable length in his preface upon this 

 mixture of salt a,nd lime; "for the enriching 

 of poor and barren land, it is the cheapest of 

 all mixtures, and is most easy to be done ; for 

 any ploughman having but once seen it done 

 may be presently able to manage it." 



Salt and lime was used as a manure by Mr- 

 Mitchell, of Ayr, many years since, and he, not 

 knowing what others had done with this fer- 

 tilizer before his time, considered himself to 

 be the discoverer. He thus described his pro- 

 cess : Take 32 bushels of lime, and^slack it 

 with sea-water, previously boiled to the satu- 

 rated state. This quantity is sufficient for an 

 acre of ground, and may be either thrown out 

 of the carts with a shovel over the land in the 

 above state, or made into compost with 40 

 loads of moss or earth, in which state it will 

 be found to pay fully for the additional labour, 

 and is sufficient for an acre of fallow ground, 

 though ever so reduced before. Its component 

 parts are muriate and sulphate of lime, mineral 

 alkali, in an uncombined state, also muriate 

 and carbonate of soda. All the experiments 

 have done well with it, but especially wheat 

 and beans ; and it has not been behind any 

 manure with which it has been compared. 

 There is one instance in which it was tried in 

 comparison with 72 cart-loads of soaper's waste 

 and dung; and although this was an extraordi- 

 nary dressing, yet that with this salt and lime 

 manure was fully above the average of the 

 field. Mr. Mitchell calculates that 3000 gallons 

 of sea-water, boiled down to about 600 gallons, 

 will slack 64 bushels of shell lime. (These 

 3000 gallons of sea-water will contain about 



