346 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



SALT-ITS USE IN DESTROYING VER- 

 MIN AND WEEDS. 



We turn again to Johnson's Book on Fertilizers. 

 Under the head of Common Salt, he gives numerous 

 experiments with different qualities of that substance, 

 applied to the various grains, vegetables, and grasses ; 

 but as we doubt whether the price of the article in 

 this country would not make it inexpedient to use 

 it, in preference to cheaper and more efficient ma- 

 nures, we choose rather to extract what he says of it 

 as to its effects in the destruction of vermin ; and 

 this we do in some hope that it may be advanta- 

 geously employed as a means of arresting the rav- 

 ages of pestiferous worms, flies, and other insects, that 

 infest our fruit trees, and fields of cotton and grain ; 

 increasing in variety and voracity of late years in 

 such a degree, as to threaten the annihilation of some 

 fruit and ornamental trees, and seriously to impair 

 the value of cotton plantations. 



There is, says the writer before us, no agricultural 

 use of common salt more undoubted than in the 

 destruction of vermin. The effect, too, is direct, and 

 the result immediately apparent. For this jiurpose, 

 from five to ten bushels per acre are abundantly suffi- 

 cient. The agriculturist need be under no appre- 

 hension that the salt will destroy his crop, for twenty 

 bushels of salt per acre may be applied to young 

 wheat with perfect safety. I have seen twenty-five 

 bushels used with advantage. 



No person has pcrhajjs used salt for this purpose 

 to a greater extent than Mr. Busk, of Ponsbouni, in 

 Hertfordshire. " I have used it," said this gentleman, 

 in a recent communication to the author, in this 

 and in the lastAeason, "as a top-dressing to nearly 

 two hundred acres of wheat, having almost exclu- 

 sively in view the destruction of slugs and worms, 

 •with which my land was very much infested, and 

 this object is very satisfactorily accomplished. Some 

 part of my land is light and strong, well adapted to 

 the growth of beans and wheat. In applying the 

 salt, little attention was paid to the quality of the 

 land, or the season of the year ; but those spots and 

 those times were selected where the number and 

 ravages of the vermin seemed most apparent, and in 

 every situation, and at every time, the effect appeared 

 equally beneficial. A little more experience may 

 perhaps suggest some more accurate rule as to season ; 

 but I am of opinion that the earliest will in general 

 be found the best ; at any rate, I would avoid sow- 

 ing, if I could, immediately after a fall of snow, as 

 snow produces, on places recently sjirinkled with 

 salt, an unpromising appearance. Perhaps the best 

 mode may be, what we have very satisfactorily in 

 some instances tried, to sow it on clovcrleys and bean 

 stubble just before they are ploughed. If, however, 

 there is some doubt as to the most eligible quality 

 of the land, or period of year, there can be none as 

 to the fittest state of the weather or time of the day : 

 an ojjportunity should be selected when the weather 

 is mild and moist, but not rainy — when the land is 

 damp, but not wet ; and salt should never be sowed 

 when the sun is shining, but either early in the 

 morning or late in the evening, after sunset. We 

 sow it out of an ordinary seed shuttle, at the rate 

 of four or five bushels per acre. In the morning, 

 each throw may be distinguished by the quality of 

 slime, and the number of dead slugs lying on the 

 ground. The finer and drier the salt is the better. 

 The positive advantage," adds Mr. Busk, " I cannot 

 state accurately in figures, but I am confident it has, 

 in every instance, been considerable ; and in some 

 fields it has been the means of preventing the total 

 destrviction of the crop." 



For destroying worms and other vermin in oats, 

 salt has been successfully employed by Mr. Walker, 

 Rushyford, in Durham, at the rate of six bushels 

 per acre. 



For the same important purposes, salt has been 

 regularly employed by Mr. Archibald, gardener to 

 Lord Sheffield, at Fitcham, in Sussex ; as well as for 

 promoting the destruction of weeds. He trenches 

 the ground and sprinkles it with salt every winter, 

 and is never troubled with predatory vermin. When 

 Mr. Archibald first came to Sheffield Park, in 1828, 

 he found the peaches and nectarines regularly eaten 

 and destroyed by some kind of vermin. Getting up 

 early in the morning, he found it was done by tha 

 snails, who, as soon as the sun was risen, so as to 

 shine with power on the south aspect, retired back 

 to the northern side. He immediately laid a thick 

 layer of salt along the northern wall, and found then, 

 as ever since, that it ])roved a most effectual barrier 

 to the intrusions of the snails ; and that it has cer- 

 tainly no bad influence on the trees or fruit. — Amer- 

 ican Farmer. 



HOW TO MAKE A HORSE SURE- 

 FOOTED. 



A singular account of the manners of the ancients 

 in the manner of breaking in their horses, rendering 

 them sure-footed when galloping over the most 

 irregular and dangerous grounds, is related bv Yego- 

 titus. The Parthian horses were lighter and hardier 

 than those of the Cappadocians or Modes, and were 

 the best war horses. A spot of dry level ground was 

 selected, on whic-h various troughs or boxes, filled 

 with chalk or clay, were placed at irregular distances, 

 and with much irregularity of surface and of height. 

 Here the horses wexe taken for exercise, and they 

 had many a fall as they galloped this strangely un- 

 even course ; but they gradually learned to lift their 

 feet higher, and to bend their knees better, and to 

 step sometimes shorter and sometimes longer, as the 

 ground required, until they could carry their riders 

 with case and safety over the most irregular and 

 dangerous places. Then it was that the Parthians 

 could full)' put into practice their favorite manoeuvre, 

 and turn upon and destroy their unsuspecting foes. 

 They M-ere as formidable in flight as in attack, and 

 would often turn on the back of the animal and pour 

 on their pursuers a cloud of arrows that at once 

 changed the fortunes of the day. — Scientific Amer- 



A PLEA FOR THE COW. 



In our rambles about the city, we had the good 

 luck to fall in with Davis, the man who keeps better 

 cows, and has poured out more quarts of milk to the 

 good people of Detroit, than any other man in it. 

 And he knows something about cows too. He says 

 that you farmers in the country hardly know the 

 meaning of a good cow. He brings against you the 

 grave charge of "scrimping" your cows, and well 

 nigh starving them in the months of February, March, 

 and April, so that there is nothing left of them but a 

 "rack of bones ; " and then they are good for nothing 

 for the whole season. For a while, after being turned 

 to grass, they arc reduced to mere shadows by the 

 scours, and by the time they begin to recover from 

 this back-set, the flies are ready to tackle them ; and 

 thus the poor creatures arc kept down the whole 

 summer through. That, he says, is bad economy, 

 and it is too. Verily, this is a great evil under the 

 sun, and if we knew what to say or do to correct it, 

 most gladly would we set ourselves to the task. If 

 scolding would do any good, for humanity's sake, or 

 the'poor cows' sakes, we would scold until you cried, 

 "Enuf!" And now, in the name of these poor, 

 mute, suffering, meek, uncomplaining, unoft'ending 

 creatures, Ave would ask what you mean by such 

 treatment. Do they not reward you fourfold for all 



