On tfte Uses of Salt in Agriculture. 99 



No. VIII. 



UN THE USES OF SALT IN AGRICULTURE. 



THERE ia probably no substance, that could, in so many various re- 

 spects be rendered so useful to agriculture, as salt. 1 . It operates as 

 a manure to arable land ; 2. It may be of use in promoting the ferti- 

 lity of waste land; 3. It is an effectual remedy against the smut ; 

 4. It preserves the seed, when sown, from vermin ; 5. It promotes 

 the vegetation of oily seeds ; 6. It increases the produce of pasture 

 land, and meadows ; 7. It improves the quality of hay ; 8. It ren- 

 ders coarse food more nourishing, and moist food less injurious, to cat- 

 tle, and horses ; 9. It preserves stock from disease, and improves 

 their condition ; and, 10. It has a tendency to prevent the rust or 

 blight in wheat. 



] . On Salt as a Manure to Arable Land. Though salt, if em- 

 ployed in large quantities, in its natural state, is hostile to vegetation, 

 yet it operates advantageously, in various ways, when judiciously ap- 

 plied to arable land. In large quantities, it has a tendency, like every 

 other excessive stimulus, to disorganize and destroy the vegetable 

 substances with which it comes in contact ; but in moderate quan- 

 tities, it promotes the growth of vegetables, by enabling them to take 

 up more nutriment, in a given space of lime, and to perform their 

 circulations and secretions with greater energy *. 



The following are modes, in which it has been successfully made 

 use of for the improvement of arable land. 



1. In preparing the soil, tinder the fallow process, it is recommend- 

 ed, to sow from thirty to forty bushels of salt per statute acre, for the 

 purpose of destroying the roots and insects in the soil, and breaking 

 all the tough and adhesive clods which are found to be so trouble- 

 some in working the ground. This should be done in autumn, some 



On moor and gravelly soils of high elevation, superior permanent pasture 

 has been formed, and improved, where the new practice has been adopted, as on 

 the estate of Mr Brown of Auchenlochau, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, and Lord 

 Ruthven in Perthshire ; and these trials were made on a large scale, under cir- 

 cumstances very unpropitious, the season being hot and dry, and consequently 

 injurious to the vegetation of the seeds and to the progress of the seedling grasses. 

 The above instances are selected, from numerous others equally worthy of being 

 quoted, with the view of pointing out the fact, that success in this branch of 

 practical husbandry, does not depend on the nature of the soil, but that, on dif- 

 ferent and opposite soils, success is equally certain, provided the proper mode of 

 culture be pursued, and genuine seeds used ; for unless the seeds be pure, and 

 genuine to the species, it is necessary to add here, that the result will be un- 

 satisfactory, if not altogether a failure, as may happen, in the well-known cul- 

 ture of the turnip or the wheat crop. 



Darwin's Phytologia, p. 356 ; Cheshire Report, p. 240. As an article of 

 food, salt can never promote the growth of vegetable substances, the marine 

 alone excepted, but as a chemical agent, it may certainly be of use, by either de- 

 stroying, or facilitating the decomposition of animal and vegetable substances. 

 By its tendency to deliquescence also, it may promote the fertility of the soil. 

 Hay ward, p. 101. 



