88 COMMON SALT. 



is not necessary to vegetable life, it acts when 

 in excess as a poison. 



Various suggestions have been made for 

 modifying this effect of the common salt One 

 of the latest writers on the subject is a Mr. 

 Henrj Kemp of Poole, who states that he has 

 discovered a ready and efficacious means of 

 decomposing common salt and neutralizing its 

 caustic property, and he speaks of the success 

 that has attended its use in his own immediate 

 neighbourhood as having been very decided. 

 This is precisely what our previous reasoning 

 would have led us to anticipate, as when decom- 

 posed, the noxious property of the gas is got 

 rid of, and its beneficial property onty retained 

 to act on vegetation. 



Mr. Kemp unfortunately, in his pamphlet, 

 does not say how or in what manner he has 

 succeeded in thus decomposing salt at such 

 a rate of expense as would alTov^ of its use 

 in agriculture. He merely states the fact that 

 he had done so, and speaks of the beneficial 

 results he has attained, but declines describing 

 his process unless he is remunerated for it. 

 Whether he has as yet divulged this secret, 

 or whether there is any probability of his doing 

 so is not known, as, since the publication 

 of his pamphlet, which deservedly attracted 

 attention at the time (1832,) we have heard 

 nothing about it. 



Mr. Johnson, in his valuable work on 

 manures, gives all the information that is 

 known, and a great variety of experiments 

 that have been made with common salt, and to 



