On Salt as a Manure. 



161 



shortly to be able to send you a copy [we have since received 

 it, see Part II. Art. 3.]; but, in the mean time, I must observe 

 to you, on your suggestion that " salt may stimulate both 

 arable or pasture land, without being a manure," that Sir 

 Humphry Davy says, in the Agricultural Chemistry, " when 

 common salt acts as a manure, it is, probably, by entering 

 into the composition of the plant in the same manner as 

 gypsum," &c. 



Mr. G. Sinclair, in a prize essay on salt as a manure, gives 

 the following analysis of wheat, to which forty-four bushels of 

 salt per acre had been applied : 



Ashes. 

 40 

 10 



Soluble 



Salt. 



20 



S 



Common 



Salt. 



10 



1450 grains of chaff afforded 

 1 450 ditto grain yielded 



Wheat sown without Salt. 



1450 grains chaff gave - • - 50 18 2§. 



1450 ditto grain gave - 10 5 £ 



Is not common salt, then, taken up by the roots of plants, 

 as a material of food? Must not salt be, therefore, a manure? 

 To ascertain this, I have caused seeds of wheat, barley, and 

 oats to vegetate in water that had been filtered and boiled, 

 and others of the same sort of seeds, in water containing a 

 hundredth part of its weight of common salt in solution ; the 

 result is, that the plants growing in the salt and water, have 

 greatly surpassed the others in size and growth. I have eva- 

 porated the water containing the salt, and found, after a 

 month's growth of the plants in it, that it had lost fifteen per 

 cent, of salt : I have reduced the plants to ashes, and have 

 recovered the fifteen per cent, of salt from them ; tell me, 

 then, if salt is not a manure, what is ? 



I fear I can suggest no substitute for salt or sugar, with 

 which your emigrants could flavour their hay-tea ; but after 

 the tarpaulin soup, tripe de la roche tea, and the fried sole (of 

 shoes) powder of Franklin and Richardson, dire necessity 

 would render even hay-tea palatable without either. 



I proceed to give you some account of the uses to which 

 many of our indigenous plants are applied by the cottagers in 

 Devonshire; and as you mention the crow garlic, I will begin 

 with that, being the allium vineale, which, with the wild garlic, 

 allium oleraceum, is used as a condiment with potatoes fried: 

 the young shoots, too, of both sorts are eaten with bread and 

 butter, and boiled in broth, and our labourers have an opinion 

 of their anti-nephritic qualities in gravel. 



Vol. II. — No. 6. m 



