REMARKS ON SALT AS A MANURE.
The progress of agriculture has been, and no doubt will continue to be, proportionate to the advancement of the science of chymistry; and the absolute necessity of calling in the aid of this science to that of agriculture, will be perfectly evident, when we reflect, that whenever any substance is applied to the soil, it becomes very frequently changed into new matter by combination or decomposition.—When a handful of salt is thrown upon some soils, its nature is in a very short time changed, and it becomes a new substance, which may be useful or injurious to vegetation, according to the change which it has undergone. Hence originates the great diversity of opinion, relative to the use of salt as a manure, a subject which the science of chymistry would set at rest, after a few simple experiments, but which the practice of agriculture would never determine without the knowledge of the effect of the soil, on the salt. There are also other considerations which materially affect the value in which this article is held as a manure. The farmers in Cornwall, in England, use the salt in which fish has been cured, by which the salt has already been partially changed, by combining it with the ammonia of the fish, which is one of the most powerful fertilizers known to chymical science. The practice also of using sea sand, in the same shire, is attended with effects which are as much owing to the use of the sand as the salt.—The astonishing effect produced by the urine of cattle, in Flanders, is no evidence in favour of salt, [as the urine contains twelve or thirteen fertilizing saline substances, besides salt] but it is a very powerful one in favour of compound saline manures. Salt is used in one of the preparations for the Patent Plaster, or Fertilizing Compost, but it is in that case combined with quicklime, and its eventual product is the muriate of lime and soda, both of which, when combined with other substances, are powerful fertilizers.
It appears to be a provision of nature, that the muriate of soda, or common salt, should be a neutral substance with respect to fertilizing the soil. For if it possessed any degree of fertilizing powers, its effect would be seen on our sea-coasts; and its utility, by this time, would have been decisively proved by experiment as well as accident. That salt is partially beneficial to some soils, is beyond a doubt; but whether the benefit is equivalent to the expense of using it, is a question which can only be determined by the nature of the soil.—Wherever lime is used as a manure, salt may be beneficially applied, or when combined with any fertilizing substance which has a tendency to decompose it, but in this case the fertilizing power is owing to the new product, and not to the muriate of soda.
[Morn. Chron.