366 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the accidents of the seasons ! Instead of rising in our might, as one nation, to de- 

 mand the enactment of a policy that would force the capitalist with his capital, and 

 the machinist with his machinery, to come and establish himself here, where 

 materials and provisions are cheap, and where, with the fashioner of his produce 

 in his immediate vicinity, the farmer and the planter would have demand for 

 every production the earth could be made to bear, and would keep at home and 

 save that portion of his labor, and products, and time, and manure, which are 

 now wasted on the road and on the ocean, in the very act of exchanging his 

 raw materials for manufactures at thousands of miles from each other. 



But our purpose was merely to note as to one point touched upon in this in- 

 teresting and valuable letter from Mr. Caperton. It will be seen that he adverts 

 to the settled conviction existing among practical men of the intrinsic usefulness 

 and value of salt in the practice of grazing. 



The reason ive raised the question was twofold — first, that if as useful and 

 necessary as we there saw it was esteemed to be, the fact should be made known 

 for the benefit, we will not say the confusion, of our friends in many parts of the 

 country, Avho, as we well know, altogether neglect to have their domestic ani- 

 mals salted ; and then another reason was that, as in Europe, where this work 

 is read, the question of salt or no salt, in fattening cattle and sheep, has been 

 lately raised, and careful experiments instituted to test it, we were desirous to 

 have the benefit of the observations of practical men in our own country, most 

 interested in the subject, and most likely to be well informed. 



Adding now the testimony of Mr. Caperton to that of other gentlemen of ob- 

 servation, experienced graziers, we have only to say that according to the lately 

 published results of actual experiments, made with great care and minuteness, 

 in France and England, both with cattle and sheep, the use of salt proved to be 

 of no value whatever. In the case of the trial with a dozen sheep, which lasted 

 for several months, the salted sheep gained more than the unsalted by about 

 one shilling's worth more than the cost of the salt. 



The English experimenter, or Editor — we forget which — adverts to the same 

 circumstance referred to by Mr. Caperton, the great fondness evinced by wild 

 animals, in traveling to a great distance to salt-licks ; still, he says, there is the 

 obstinate fact, the undoubted result of a most exact and careful experiment. 



After all, Avhat a happy thing for the pursuit, that open questions are ever to 

 be found that invite investigation and trial ! 



We are disposed to think that much may depend on locality. Both the soil 

 and grasses are known to contain a certain amount of common salt ; and the 

 quantity may depend, among other circumstances, on the greater or less distance 

 of the place from the ocean. We should doubt whether there exists, in Wor- 

 cester County, on the seaboard of Maryland, anything like the same occasion to 

 salt domestic animals that is found in Allegany County, and that independently 

 of their cattle having access to salt water. 



Since writing the above, we find in Johnston's Lectures on Agricultural Chem- 

 istry and Geology, a section on the very subject in hand, which we shall place 

 immediately after Mr. Caperton's letter, and which contains perhaps all we can 

 hope for, until we possess greater facilities for the application of Science to ag- 

 ricultural problems — such facilities as we now possess for its application to war- 

 like studies and pursuits. With such facilities, it need not be long before we 

 could have the grasses and the food grown on the seaboard analyzed and chem- 

 ically compared with those on the mountains. So of the air, and the running 



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