Proceedings of the Farmer^ Club. 351 



goats to this country, two shepherd dogs, and numerous other 

 things of great interest. He showed some specimens of cloth, such 

 as he said he saw in Asia, that was said to have been made six 

 hundred years ago. He also exhibited some beautiful articles of 

 hosiery, which had been manufactured from the fleeces of these 

 goats. 



SALT AS A MANURE FOR ^-HEAT. 



■ Mr. George Steele, Thorudale, Chester county, Pennsylvania. — 

 Salt with lime, and alone, has been applied as a manure for wheat, 

 on the farm which I cultivate, for a number of yeai-s, with very 

 good effect. From my own experience and obsen'^ation of the 

 effects of salt on this land, I am led to forai the following estimate 

 of its value as a manure: One and a-half sacks of merchantable 

 ground salt, or an equivalent of dirty salt, and twenty-five bushels 

 of lime per acre, produce as good wheat as a moderate dressing of 

 stable manure, and the grass after the wheat is as good, where the 

 salt and lime are applied, as where the stable manure was applied. 

 The salt and lime have been applied after plowing, and harrowed 

 in; the lime spread with a shovel or lime spreader, as soon as 

 slacked, while in a powdered condition, and the salt sowed broad- 

 cast or mixed with the lime before spreading, or the lime slacked 

 with brine; about twice the above-mentioned quantity of salt alone, 

 I believe to be as good for this land as the salt and lime. The 

 rocks here are talc slate. The soil, gi-avel, clay and loam was 

 exhausted about seventy-five years ago, and its cultivation aban- 

 doned. It has since been reclaimed from barrenness by an improved 

 system of agi'iculture, and the use of lime as a manure. The land 

 to which the salt was applied had been frequently limed, which 

 fact may be important in considering the effect of the salt applied 

 alone. 



PREPARATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL. 



Mr. Charles Hunt, Frankfort, Mich. — Most persons who write 

 and theorize on the subject of utilizing peat for fuel, do so with 

 the belief that some kind of machinery, more or less expensive, is 

 necessary to prepare it by condensation or pressing. Hence, invent- 

 oi-s have set their wits and hands to work, until, I am informed, 

 some thirty odd different peat machines have been patented, vary- 

 ing in cost from one hundred dollars to one hundred thousand dol- 

 lars. Some are, of course, worthless, even to the inventors; all are 

 expensive, and, as I believe, worse than useless to those who would 

 make peat-mining pay. Good peat, from well-drained bogs, pro- 



