1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARItlER. 



305 



SAIiTPETBE. 

 ROM some experiments which 

 we have made with this salt, 

 we are inclined to think that 

 its importance as a manurial agent 

 is not justly appreciated. In these 

 experiments, at a cost oi Jive cents 

 per pound, we found it among the 

 cheapest fertilizers we have ever 

 used. Its use is not a modern discovery. 

 Virgil recommended it to Italian farmers. 

 The first English author who wrote upon hus- 

 bandry in 1532, Anthony Fitzherbert, de- 

 scribes it as having the power to insure to the 

 farmer the most abundant crops. A hundred 

 years afterwards, Evelyn, in a Discourse on 

 Earth, told the farmers of his age, that if they 

 could but obtain a plentiful supply of saltpetre, 

 they would "need but little other compost to 

 meliorate their ground." Even Jethro TuU, 

 who zealously denied the necessity of manure 

 of any kind, placed nitre at the head of his 

 list of those substances which he deemed to be 

 the essential food of plants. But it is only in 

 modern days that saltpetre has been exten- 

 sively employed as a fertilizer, for it is not 

 long that it has been produced in quantities 

 sufficiently large and at reasonable prices to 

 enable the farmer to profitably use it as a ma- 

 nure. 



It is so extensively used in the arts, and es- 

 pecially in the manufacture of powder, that 

 the price has been thought too high to make it 

 a profitable investment in the soil. In large 

 quanties, however, and in ordinary times, we 

 think it may be secured at as low prices as 

 Peruvian guano or the superphosphate of lime. 

 It is much more difficult to adulterate it than 

 either of those articles, so that the pure salt, 

 only, would be purchased. 



SaUpetre is a natural product in some soils 

 in hot climates, as in India and South America. 

 It is also manufactured by a curious chemical 

 process, in the following manner : Animal sub- 

 stances, flesh, hides, &c. are mixed with lime 

 and earth, and this mixture is moistened and 

 left to putrefy. The result is saltpetre. It is 

 found in Peru in a thick stratum 3500 feet 

 above the level of the Pacific ocean. It 

 abounds in Ceylon, Persia, Egypt and Spain, 

 and is frequently found on the surface of the 

 ground, where it is naturally generated under 

 favorable circumstances, and in situations 



much more frequent than the farmer is woivf 

 to suspect. 



"Wherever ammonia is copiously generated, 

 as in stables, farm-yards, &c., and wherever 

 the nitrogen, which forms a component part of 

 ammonia, at the moment of its extrication has 

 access to potash or calcareous matter, there 

 saltpetre is usually formed." This is natu- 

 rally done so copiously, in some of those situ- 

 ations in which the farmer is placed, as to 

 form fine crystalline exudations on the walls. 

 This will account, in some measure, certainly, 

 for the remarkable growth which nettles, horse 

 radish, sun-flower, nightshade, and some other 

 plants, make about the Louses of not over-tidy 

 farmers. It slowly collects on the plastered 

 walls of houses, so that during the Crimean 

 war saltpetre was in such demand for the man- 

 ufacture of powder, that hundreds of the old 

 dwellings of France and England were stripped 

 of their plaster walls to get at the modicum of 

 saltpetre which had formed upon them. Those 

 persons who gather saltpetre from the earth's 

 surface in Southern Africa and Hindostan, and 

 those who have prepared artificial beds in 

 Spain from the sweepings of the streets in 

 Madrid, state that nothing more is needed 

 than a certain proportion of decomposing ani- 

 mal and vegetable matters, with some potash, 

 and calcareous matter. If our farmers will 

 but investigate tlieir own resources, perhaps 

 many of them will find that they possess all the 

 essentials within themselves, and in their own 

 soils for the formation of saltpetre. 



Top Dressing and Close Cutting. — On 

 lands not too wet all will agree with me that It 

 Is best to top dress. We should give more 

 attention to the composting of manures to be 

 applied as a top-dressing to our mowing fields. 

 Let any farmer each year make but five or ten 

 cords more of manure by hauling in muck and 

 leaves into his hog-pens or barn-yards to ab- 

 sorb the urine, and apply it as a top-dressing 

 soon after haying, and the results will be won- 

 derful. The grass will begin to grow imme- 

 diately after the first fall of rain. The roots 

 are nourished and are better protected against 

 frost in winter, and if fed off in the fall it is 

 not done so closely as if no manure had been 

 applied. 



One reason why grass crops run out is be- 

 cause they are fed too late in the fall, or over 

 fed. In the spring they should not be fed at 

 all. Cutting some kinds of grass too low is 

 often very injurious. When the top of the 

 root of herdsgrass is taken up by mowing cr 



