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MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the leaf ; the amount of sugar contained in the bulb counteracts 

 the taste of the salt in it. Though a moderate application of 

 common salt is found to increase the produce, yet too large an 

 application is not attended with similar beneficial results, as 

 appears from experiments made on this farm* during the present 

 year, for the purpose of ascertaining the efficacy of common 

 salt on the Mangold crop, in both large and moderate quantities. 

 The following table is quite sufficient to illustrate this. All the 

 circumstances connected with the cultivation were precisely 

 similar, except in the case of the salt applied. f 



The best mode of applying the salt is to scatter it over the 

 manure when spread in the bottom of the drill, and by this 

 means there is no danger of its coming into contact with the 

 seed, the vitality of which it would otherwise destroy. When 

 any other of the extraneous manures are used with the farm- 

 yard dung, they may be applied in the same manner, or spread 

 along at the back of the first bout of the plough when the drill 

 is being formed, and is covered in by the second bout, which 

 completes the drills. By this latter mode it will be nearer to 

 the young plant when the seed has vegetated, and therefore 



* I may be permitted to remark, that the various experiments conducted on 

 the Albert Farm are very correct and perfectly reliable, as great care and 

 attention are exercised in carrying them out ; besides being generally conducted 

 on a pretty large scale, and the entire produce weighed, there is no danger of 

 those errors which so frequently occur from the present system so generally 

 adopted for ascertaining the acreable produce. 



\ Mr. Austen, of Chitworth, near Guilford, who farms on the green sand, 

 has informed me, that with common salt alone on his land, he has succeeded 

 jn growing an excellent crop of Mangold Wurzel, by applying it after the plant 

 was up, in successive doses of 2 cwt. per acre up to 6 or 8 cwt. Every fresh 

 application appeared to give the crop a new start. — Johnston's Experimental 

 Agriculture, p. 63. 



