When a canal is to be cleansed, which often happens,—it is divided, at convenient distances, by dikes; and every neighbouring village, being allotted its share, the peasants immediately appear with their chain-engines; whereby the water is conveyed from one to the other. This labour, though painful, is soon ended, by means of the multitudes of hands. In some parts, as the province of Fo-Kyen, the mountains, though not very high, are contiguous, and with scarce any valleys between; yet they are all cultivated by the art which the husbandmen have to convey the water from one to the other through pipes made of bamboo.
To this surprizing industry of the husbandmen, is owing that great plenty of grain and herbs, that reigns in China above all other regions. Notwithstanding which, the land hardly suffices to support its inhabitants; and one may venture to say, that to live comfortably they have need of a country as large again.
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.
THE LOCUST TREE.
A writer in the Long Island Star, highly recommends the cultivation of the Locust Tree, as a profitable business. He says the price of this timber is about seventy-five cents per cubic foot—that 200 trees will grow on an acre of land—or 20,000 trees to a hundred acres, which may average 20 feet per tree, which would give the enormous sum of $300,000. But suppose they amount to only $100,000, as the nett profits from 100 acres, in what way can the landholder expect so great a profit in 30 years, with the same probability of success, as from this? He mentions, that the timber, the seeds of which were planted by one man in England, was sold for 60,000l. sterling.