60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



animals, and those of every other Berkshire man, eat salt with 

 the same avidity that they would meal or grain, once or twice 

 a week. 



One gentleman speaks about salt injuring animals. I know 

 perfectly well that that is so ; and I know that it can kill plants ; 

 but this capacity to kill, to my mind, certainly proves it to be a 

 benefit, if properly used. My friend Judge Bishop, of Lenox, 

 once bought some salt in New York at a low figure, and sowed 

 so much upon his grass land that it entirely killed the grass for 

 a year or two ; but after that he had better grass than he ever 

 had before, or ever knew the land to produce ; and that lot has 

 continued to bear grass from that time, some six or eight years 

 ago, to this day. 



The fact that animals refuse to take salt, is sufficient proof 

 that the plants do not need it ; and the fact that the animals in 

 this part of the State will eat salt twice a week, proves that the 

 land will be benefited by salt. I have bought all the refuse 

 salt I can get for six years, and composted it with my barnyard 

 manure. On one side of my barn there is a gravel and cement 

 floor, and I use considerable straw litter on that side, and com- 

 post the salt with the manure on that side. I can mark the 

 place where that salt goes just as plainly as I can see these aisles. 



So far as the amount is concerned, I believe if a man applies 

 four bushels of good salt to the acre and ploughs it under, it 

 will be no injury. One of my neighbors found that the wire- 

 worm had got into his corn. He replanted it and put a teaspoon- 

 ful of salt on top of each hill after planting ; there came a rain, 

 and he had no more trouble with the wire-worm. The corn 

 did well. 



Mr. FoOTE, of Williamstown. If any gentleman present has 

 experimented with ashes, live or leached, upon the potato crop, 

 I would like to have him state the result of his experience. In 

 a single experiment that I made, the ashes were rather detri- 

 mental than otherwise. 



Mr. Butler. Last spring I planted a lot of potatoes, and I 

 told my boy to put a moderate handful of unleached ashes in 

 each hill. He did so until he run short of ashes. I planted 

 about three-quarters of an acre with ashes, and about one-quar- 

 ter without ashes. The potatoes had no manure other than the 

 ashes. There was a very marked difference in favor of the 



