WIRE WORM AND CLICK BEETLE. 
45 
valuable on account of its intensely caustic nature, which destroys all 
life in weeds or insects alike which it may come in contact with before 
its nature is altered by exposure to the air. After this the “waste” 
is a safe and serviceable manure usually procurable at a very small 
cost, or merely at the remover’s expense of carriage from the works. * 
The following communication is with regard to the use of 
alkali waste produced in the manufacture of soda ash at Whines, 
Lancashire :— 
The Lancashire farmers get the waste for carting, and use it in 
heavy dressings to mellow heavy land, and destroy perennial weeds, as 
Couch-grass, Coltsfoot, or Thistles, but a dressing of two or three 
tons per statute acre is as much as grass land will bear at one time, 
and then it must be spread quickly, or the heaps will destroy the 
grass roots as well as the herbage. 
This quantity per acre will be very fatal to the Wire worm, and is 
surprisingly penetrating. After much rain, drains three feet deep in a 
heavy soil yield milky white water after an application of two or three 
tons per acre. 
On arable land five tons per acre is a good dressing, and fatal to 
all insect and worm life; deep-rooted perennial weeds require more, 
especially Coltsfoot. 
This waste and gas-lime are somewhat similar in nature and 
action, but the waste is more caustic, and contains about two per cent, 
of soda, very valuable in agriculture. It loses the caustic nature 
when exposed to air and moisture, and the rule is to leave it on the 
surface of arable land, exposed to air and rain, for at least six weeks 
before ploughing it in. If it is buried in the soil before it has lost its 
caustic properties it destroys the seed, &c., when sown. 
Care is requisite in carting it in wet weather, or any liquid 
drippings falling on the horse take off the hair, and make the skin raw 
and blistered.—(John Crompton, Bivington, Cliorley.) 
Many people in the neighbourhood of Widnes use the chemical 
waste for killing worms, and also for manure on strong land.— 
(Per S. Fitton, Nantwicli.) 
Gas Tar Water. 
Four years ago I had a field of nine acres on light good gravelly 
soil in Wheat after Oats, and in February the plant commenced dying. 
* For further particulars see “Alkali Waste,” pp. 616, 617, ‘Journal of Royal 
Agricultural Society,’ vol. x., 1st series. From this it appears that alkali waste 
when fresh possesses caustic properties which are highly dangerous to vegetation, 
but after a time, by exposure to the air, the sulphur compounds become altered in 
their nature, and “ essentially, then, alkali waste consists of sulphate and 
carbonate of lime, and may be used with advantage and economy wherever gypsum 
would be of use,” 
