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._