SALT, COMMON. 



\ JO Ibs. of common salt.) A quantity sufficient | 

 for 2 acres. The expense of carrying the water 

 from the sea, the evaporation, &c., he adds, will 

 cost 20s. The 64 bushels of limestone cost him 

 40s., or 3/. for 2 acres. 



The use of this mixture of salt and lime was 

 also noticed in the year 1800, by Mr. Rollings- 

 head, of Chorley, in Lancashire, who observes : 

 " Lime prepared for manure should be slacked 

 with salt-springs or salt-water: lime so slacked 

 will have a double effect." And in 1816, Mr. 

 James Manley, of Anderton, in Cheshire, when 

 giving his evidence before a committee of the 

 House of Commons on the salt duties, men- 

 tioned, that in getting marl (which is a mixture 

 of carbonate of lime, alumina, and silica), he 

 had found that, by mixing it with brine instead 

 of water, the portion of the field on which the 

 brined marl was used yielded 5 bushels of 

 wheat per acre more than that portion on 

 which the watered marl was employed; and 

 it may be well to remember, that the celebrated 

 salt sand of Padstow Harbour is composed of 

 64 per cent, of carbonate of lime ; and that, in 

 the experiments of the late Rev. Edmund Cart- 

 wright, upon potatoes, of 25 manures, or mix- 

 tures of manures, salt and lime were found 

 superior in their product of potatoes to 19 

 others. 



Every farmer has it in his power, even in the 

 most inland situations, to procure this most ex- 

 cellent manure for the use of his farm, by 

 means of a mixture of two parts of lime and 

 one part of common salt, and suffering it to 

 remain incorporated in a shady place, or cover- 

 ed with sods, for 2 or 3 months ; a plan which 

 I suggested some years since. (Essay on Salt, 

 p. 32, 3d ed.) By this process a gradual de- 

 composition takes place, muriate of lime and 

 soda are formed, the whole mass speedily be- 

 coming encrusted with alkali. There is another 

 advantage to be derived from the adoption of 

 this process, besides the formation of soda, viz., 

 that the muriate of lime is one of the most 

 deliquescing or moisture-absorbing substances, 

 with which we are acquainted ; and, in conse- 

 quence, whenever it exists in a soil, the warmth 

 of the sun has, in summer, much less influence 

 on it than it wouldotherwise have. 



I would especially warn those who try the 

 effect of a mixture of salt and lime, to attend 

 carefully to the directions I have given, and 

 not, as some farmers have done, to use the 

 mixed salt and lime immediately, before any 

 decomposition has taken place. After it has 

 been well mixed together in a dry state, it 

 should be allowed to remain 2 or 3 months un- 

 disturbed, and then applied at the rate of from 

 35 to 60 bushels per acre, either by sowing it 

 out of a seed-basket, or mixed with earth, and 

 spread in the usual way. It is necessary to 

 give the mixture time, since the decomposition 

 proceeds very slowly, and is not to be hastened 

 by any simple process. See LIME. 



Salt and Soot. Salt has never been employed 

 with other substances so extensively as it 

 might. I have used it for potatoes, mixed with 

 earth, ditch-scrapings, and with soot, with the 

 most decided success ; the places where it has 

 been thus applied being much superior, both 

 in appearance and in produce. 



SALTS. 



The mixture of salt with soot produces 

 the most remarkable effects, especially when 

 trenched into ground prepared for carrots. Mr. 

 G. Sinclair found that when the soil, unma- 

 nured, produced twenty-three tons of carrots 

 per acre, the same soil, fertilized with a mix- 

 ture of only six bushels and a half of salt, and 

 six and a half of soot, yielded forty tons per 

 acre. Mr. Belfield describes the mixture as 

 equally beneficial for wheat. And Mr. Cart- 

 wright found, that when the soil, without any 

 addition, yielded per acre 157 bushels of pota- 

 toes, that, dressing the same land with a mix- 

 ture of thirty bushels of soot and eight bushels 

 of salt, made it produce per acre 240 bushels. 

 (Johnson on Fertilizers.) 



SALTS, their uses to vegetation. That peculiar 

 saline substances exist in almost all vegetables, 

 was an early observation made by the natural 

 philosopher. The saline and alkaline taste 

 perceivable in the ashes obtained by the com- 

 bustion of these substances, very plainly indi- 

 cated the fact. And although the skill of the 

 chemist did not at first enable him to accu- 

 rately discriminate between the salts, the alka- 

 lies, or even the earths contained in plants, 

 with even tolerable accuracy, yet the progress 

 of science has long since surmounted a mass 

 of difficulties, and has detected a strange va- 

 riety of salts in plants. A salt, be it remem- 

 bered, is a substance produced by the combi- 

 nation of an acid with a base, that is, with an 

 earth, an alkali, or a metallic oxide : the class 

 of salts, therefore, is exceedingly numerous 

 (they have been estimated at about 2000), and 

 includes many substances which at first sight 

 do not appear entitled to such a name ; thus 

 the union of the carbonic acid with the earth 

 lime, which is an oxide of a metal, forms the 

 salt carbonate of lime, or chalk, marble, &c. 

 Sulphuric acid and lime form the salt sulphate 

 of lime (gypsum), with phosphoric acid, phos- 

 phate of lime (earthy matter of bones), and 

 many other earthy salts look to the mechanical 

 eye as little like salts as these. 



The farmer must avoid, in entering into this 

 examination, the common error of supposing 

 that the saline substances found in plants are 

 not their essential constituents or food, but are 

 merely there by chance ; that their presence is 

 unattended with benefit, and their absence 

 totally unproductive of injury ; for such is a 

 most erroneous conclusion. Not only are cer- 

 tain salts, the phosphate and sulphate of lime, 

 and the carbonate of potash, for instance, inva- 

 riably present in certain plants, but without 

 those salts are present in the soil in which they 

 grow, they will not maintain a healthy vegeta- 

 tion. Under the head EARTHS, GASES, WATER, 

 I have endeavoured to show how essential 

 those substances are to vegetation, and what a 

 great part they perform in the support of the 

 farmer's crops ; but still it will be found, that 

 when a soil is carefully composed of all the 

 pure earths discovered in plants, watered in 

 abundance with pure water, and supplied with 

 all the gases of putrefaction and of the atmo- 

 sphere, that still all these are not sufficient by 

 themselves to support a single ordinarily culti- 

 vated crop; but then it is found that where 

 such a soil is supplied with various saline sub- 

 4 N 973 



