Proceedings of hie Farmers' Club. 243 



made public through the Farmers' Club. Let a dozen farmers in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country each select three or four pieces of land a 

 few rods square and having a light loam or sandy soil. Manure one 

 with a given weight of salt alone, another with salt and ashes, another 

 with salt, lime and plaster, another with salt and barn-yard manure, 

 and another with salt and nitrate of soda. Note down the general 

 appearance and growth of the crop. Weigh the straw and chaff, and 

 the same with the grain, and send the results to the chairman of the 

 Club. This will give facts which are always needed to' confirm the 

 scientific principles of agriculture. 



Mr. C. D. Bragdon — Will the professor please state what would be 

 the effect of salt on alluvial soil ? 



Prof. J. A. Whitney — If the soil contains an excess of organic mat- 

 ter I would treat it with lime before applying salt. The advantages 

 of the use of salt are almost wholly apparent on sand, for the reason 

 mentioned a moment ago, and I should say that on a peat soil the 

 benefit would be slight. There is no doubt that salt dissolves many 

 other matters besides silica, and helps to carry them into the circula- 

 tion of plants with more readiness than the organic solutions commonly 

 present in the soil. Salt differs from ammonia, potash, and other con-' 

 stituents of plant nutrition in this, that whereas ammonia, potash, etc., 

 are assimilated and combined to form new vegetable matter, the salt 

 in solution often circulates through the plant without being assimi- 

 lated at all, and can be obtained by proper analysis as pure as when it 

 was applied to the ground, having undergone no change whatever. 



Mr. II. T. Williams — Some horticulturists in Pennsylvania claim 

 to have proved that salt has large influence in preventing pear blight, 

 and they are using it liberally, having increased the application from 

 200 to 400 bushels per acre. 



Gkeat Chops and how Grown. 

 D S. Curliss, ITarrisburg, Pa. — The soil was a light sand on a small 

 ridge twelve miles from Chicago. In the winter he spread a good 

 thickness of fresh barn-yard manure all over it; then, in April, he 

 ploughed it under, with furrows about six inches deep, and gave it a 

 thorough harrowing ; then, with a small plough he ran furrows about 

 four inches deep, north and south, four feet apart, and marked across 

 them, east and west, three feet apart ; at the corners he put a light 

 shovelful of well-rotted manure, and planted the corn, four kernels in 

 the hill, and covered it well, about two inches deep, after soaking the 

 seed six to eight hours in copperas-water, and dried it in ashes or sand. 



