Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1869 — Salt as a Manure for Wheat. [ARTICLE]

Salt as a Manure for Wheat.

Ground should be tested for salt, and its needs ascertained before it is applied; or else only a small portion of a wheat field should be selected for the purpose of making an experiment with a view of getting results that may be of use in after years. If the former course be adopted, and the farmer is unacquainted with the details of chemical analysis, the presence of salt may be ascertained by the following simple experiment: ■ Collect from the fields a cupful of dry soil, and stir it for a considerable time in two quarts of clear rain water. Filter it now through porous paper placed in a funnel, the sape as druggists do their liquid preparations; or carefully pour off the water after all the impurities have settled. Fill'a tumbler with the liquid, and pour into it a little dissolve! nitrate of silver, which will throw down, if salt be present, a white precipitate, which will be more or less plentiful, according to the abundance of the salt in the soil The following are the good results that ordinarily follow the application of salt to grain fields that are deficient in it; plumper, firmer and more numerous berries; a more tenacious stalk, which is less liable to lodge; the destruction of several kinds of insects that are injurious to the young plant, hastening the maturity of the crop; and the prevention, to a considerable degree, of the liability to rust. Now a]J these are desirable ends to accomplish, and, at a time when two bushels of salt can be bought for one bushel of wheat, we trust that farmers will risk a little in making an experiment, even if on a small scale. It la the usual practice to scatter the salt broad cast, at the rate pf four or five bushels to the acre, after the grain has been put in. Many farmers who have used it is this manner, have given their testimony that their crop of wheat has been greatly increased, and the crop of weeds, bugs and worms correspondingly diminished. If this is, so it is evident that salt performs two important offices, While ordinary manure performs but one.—Prairie Farmer.