276 On the Use of Saltpetre as Manure. 



time, though the use of saltpetre has been partially continued, yet it 

 may be said, considering its value, that it has been much neglected ; 

 nor does it ever appear to have been established as a standard 

 auxiliary manure. Mr. Cuthbert Johnson justly observes, '-'that 

 the agricultural uses of saltpetre have not been examined so care- 

 fully or generally as they ought to have been." The neglect 

 of so valuable a fertiliser when there are thousands of acres 

 requiring such assistance, is most extraordinary, and attempts 

 have been made by different authors to account for it. One 

 supposes that the price may have been an obstacle ; another 

 that it was not obtained pure, and therefore the experiments 

 failed. But my observations on the use of artificial manures 

 generally lead me to other conclusions, and I think the history 

 of saltpetre furnishes us with the history of nearly all artificial, 

 but particularly saline manures, the use of which, I regret to 

 observe, has been successively and hastily adopted, without 

 reference in many cases to season, soil, climate, or quantity ; 

 and as a few fortunate experiments have started into a fashion 

 the use of these articles, so one or two unseasonable or impro- 

 per applications has at once condemned them to neglect and 

 oblivion ; and though from the advancement of science I should 

 now hope for some more satisfactory result from the trial of that 

 class of fertilisers, I fear that the indiscriminate use to which I 

 daily see and hear of their being applied will again end in their 

 expulsion from that rank in which they ought to stand, as great 

 and useful auxiliaries to our stock of known manures. It is not 

 my intention to make a compilation from the various authors who 

 have written on saltpetre, but as all persons may not have seen the 

 article above mentioned in the Quarterly Journal, I may I hope 

 be excused for extracting so much of the report as will give some 

 weight to my own opinions, and direct the attention of the public 

 to so important a statement. It there appears that Lord Dacre 

 and 10 other gentlemen and farmers have used saltpetre for differ- 

 ent periods, varying from 15 to 3 years, on almost all sorts of 

 crops, and though there are some differences of opinion as to its 

 merits as a manure for wheat, yet the whole of the report may be 

 considered as conclusive of the value of saltpetre as a top dressing; 

 but I beg to refer gentlemen to the report itself, which will be 

 found as above mentioned. 



Now, as to my own experience, it was in the year 1827 

 that I first used saltpetre in any quantity, and as it is my con- 

 stant practice to try every artificial manure by some standard 

 of kno\\Ti value, I manured part of 14 acres of seeds in the 

 autumn of 1826 with 10 cart-loads of good dung per acre, leav- 

 ing a portion in the centre of the field to be dressed with salt- 

 petre in the following spring. The decomposition of the dung. 



