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Kainit is, on aecount of its low price in Europe, in great favour 
as a cheap form of potassie fertiliser. Owing to its great bulk, 
however, the price in Australia is about double what it is in 
England. It is chiefly extracted from salt mines at Stassfurt, in 
Germany, and was originally deposited from sea water, and is 
associated with salt, gypsum, and other saline substances. The crude 
kainit found in commerce contains 12 to 13 per cent. of potash 
(eqivalent tu about 22 to 24 per cent. sulphate of potash), 27 to 
30 per cent. of magnesia salts of little or no use as a manure, and 
30 per cent. of common salt, which in the Eastern districts of this 
State, particularly where the land is in places more or less permeated 
with saline matters, could certainly be dispensed with. It is more 
valuable in light loam than in heavier soils, which it makes more 
sticky. A fair dressing per acre would be from 3 to 6 ewt., mixed 
with other fertilisers, and worked into the soil by means of the 
plough or the digging harrows. 
Sulphate of Potash, which is the chief potash salt in kainit, is 
also sold in a more concentrated form than in that erude salt, and 
is found in commerce with a percentage of 52 per cent. of potash 
(which is equivalent to 97 per cent. pure sulphate of potash), or 
more than four times the amount per cent. found in kainit. One 
ewt. per acre forms a good dressing, in conjunction with other 
manures. 
Its pre-war price in Western Australia was £15 per ton, or 6s. 
per unit. 
Fruit and vine growers prefer this form of potash which ap- 
pears to improve the size, quality, colour, and sugar contents. 
Chloride, or Muriate of Potash, is the most soluble of the various 
salts of potash, and when purified contains as much as 60 per cent. 
of potash or 95 per cent. of muriate of potash. It is obtained as a 
by-product in the manufacture of chlorate of potash, in the purifica- 
tion of nitre, and other manufactures. It occurs also in the 
Alsatian mines of the basin of Mulhouse as “sylvanite” (mixture of 
chloride of potassium and sodium) at 14 to 20 per cent. of pure 
potash (Ix,0), and in a purer form up to 50 per cent. Its use, 
however, is harmful on certain crops, as in the case of sugar bects, 
in which it lessens the percentage of erystallisable sugar, while 
potatoes are rendered waxy, and the tobacco leaves are deteriorated 
in value; in the soil it is, besides, apt to give rise to the formation 
of common salt, while the sulphate gives rise to the formation of 
eypsum, which, in saline soils, is especially of value. 
Being as a rule cheaper per unit than the sulphate, it should be 
used in preferenee in soils containing sufficient lime, for most farm 
crops. 
In soils potash occurs in quantities ranging from .01 to 2 per 
vent., equivalent to 350 Ibs. to 70,000 lbs. per acre taken to a depth 
of 1ft.; it is derived from the weathering of minerals containing 
