On the Uses of Salt in Agriculture. 101 



nure, mixed in compost with earth, scrapings of roads, broken fish, sea 

 sand and stable dang. The quantity of salt allotted to an acre, thus 

 mixed in compost, is about a ton, which may cost about ten>hillings. 

 The broken fish is considered to be the most valuable article, but the 

 salt is accounted friendly to vegetation, in cases where it is thus used 

 in a mild and modified state. 



The most extraordinary circumstance, connected with the effects of 

 salt on vegetation, takes place in the southern provinces of France. The 

 surface of the ground on the sea-coast of those provinces, contains a 

 quantity of saline particles. When the season arrives for cultivating 

 that species of soil, the farmers find it necessary to sow, not only 

 wheat, but a plant called salicor, or kali, which produces barilla. If 

 a great quantity of rain falls from the month of April to that of June, 

 the wheat prospers, the salt being washed down below the roots of 

 the plants, leaving the saline particles remaining near the surface of 

 the soil, in that state of equilibrium which is favourable to the ve- 

 getation of grain. On the other hand, if the weather is dry, and the 

 salt remains near the surface, the salicor prospers, for it demands a 

 great quantity of salt for its vegetation. Thus, when the grain pro- 

 spers, the salicor perishes, and when it succeeds, the grain is destroy- 

 ed *. 



2. Of Salt, as promoting the Fertility of Waste Land. Having, 

 at the desire of the Board of Agriculture, written to an intelligent cor- 

 respondent in the Netherlands (M. Gillet of Brussels), to know, whe- 

 ther the farmers there, had derived any agricultural advantages from 

 the use of salt, I received in return, the following information, which 

 explains how salt, when judiciously applied in compost, may promote 

 the improvement of waste lands. 



The Abbey of St Pierre, at Ghent, before the Revolution, broke 

 up about 150 English acres (fifty Flemish bonniers) of moor-land, 

 near Oudenarde, and in order to procure manure, they adopted the 

 plan of collecting all the heath-clods or lumps which the soil produced, 

 into piles, and intermixed them with strata of salt. These piles were 

 turned over once a year, for three years successively, and were then 

 spread upon the land, which, by means of that manure, produced good 

 crops for two years. The land being let to farmers, the plan of using 

 salt was given up, and the soil becoming unproductive, was planted 

 with brushwood or coppice. It was then however ascertained, thaj 

 salt, thus applied, dissolved the coarse heathy substances to be found 

 in such soils, and converted them into manure. 



(which, however, likewise contains some of the oil and exuviae offish), has long 

 been known as an admirable manure, in Cornwall. 



* " Si le bit ci bien vegelt, le salicor peril ; et il prosjtere, lorsque le bU ett de- 

 truit." Traite" sur la Culture des Grains, tome premier, p. 268. It is pro- 

 bable that the salicor would grow in this country, if a quantity of salt were 

 sown with it. 



It would be important to know if the crop of wheat, when it does succeed, 

 is ever affected by the rust, in a soil so much impregnated with saline particles. 



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