Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1861-04-20
Salt and its Offices.

0d1C AUV 40 VWCCos
Some modern agricultural writer's have
doubted the necessity of giving animals
salt. The following remarks as to the
effect of salt upon health, by Prof. Jas.
+. johnson, of Scotland, may be rel
ishcd BY those who still put salt in their
own buildings, and allow their cattle
little now and then:
"Thc wild buffalo frequcnts the salt
ticks of Northwestern America; the
wild animals in the central parts Of
South Africa are sure prey to the
hunter, who conccals himself behind a
salt spring: and our domestic cattle run
peacefully to the hand that offers them
4 taste of this delicious luxury. From
time immemorial it has been known
that without salt man would miserably
perish; and among horrible punish
ments, entailing certain death, that of
feeding culprits on saltless food is said
to have prevailed in barbarous times.
Maggots and corruption arc spoken of
by ancient writer's as the distressing
symptoms which saltless food engen-
ders; but no ancient or unchemical
modern, could explain how such suffer-
ings arose. Now we know why the
animal Graves salt; why it suffers dis
comfort, and why it ultimately falls in
to disease if salt for time is withheld.
Upwards of half the saline matter of
the blood(5 per cent? consists of COM
mon salt; and as this is partly discharged
every day through the skin and the
kidneys, the necessity of continued sup
plies of it to the healthy body sutfi-
GENTLY obvious. The bile also contains
soda as special and Indispensable con-
stitucnt, and so do all the cartridges of
the body. Stint the supply of salt,
therefore, and neither will the bile be
able properly to assist the digestion,
nor the cartilagcs to be built Up again
as fast as they naturally waste"
A PLEA FOR BIRDs.-From an clo-
quent and truthful article in the New
York Home Jounal, condemning the
useless cruelty of destroying farm birds,
we make this extract:
Birds are the staunch friends of
every man that raises fruit, grain or
grass. They are the constitutional check
put upon dcprecating insects. Every
cherry that robin eats he pays for at
least five hundred times over by count
less and nameless in furious insects de-
voured as a part of his meat diet
Woodpcckers, meadow-larks, bluc;jays,
sparrows, robins, and the whole tribe
Of thrushes, are indefatigablc friends of
the garden and farm. They never
boast of their services. They seem
quite unconscious of their usefulness.
They make no demand upon the farm
or, on the score of beauty, song or SER
vice. They perform their disinterestcd
labor of abating the insect plague UNI
der all discouragements, and even when
rcquited with abuse and persecution.
With these services, they also bring to
us an amount of enjoyment in their
songs, which no man of sensibility can
enough appreciate, and which is not u
whit less deserving because they sell
10 tickets to their concert, and pass
around no hat after their performance.
FLOWING IN GRAss-SEED.-Ac cores
pondcnt of the Ncr England Farmer, IL
farmer of much experience i'll one of
the New England States, says that he
has tried the experiment of blowing in
his grass-seed on fine qualities of soil,
and always with success. There is no
danger that the seed will not come up,
and it is more certain than when slight
ly covered in the old way by the drag.
1t escapes the drouth, the roots take
deeper hold, and the grass grows strong
err and better than when the roots are
on or near the surface. The expert
ment is worth trying, on our sandy
soil at least
ia Fruit trees, received in bundles,
should have their roots well moistencd
before the bundles are opened. When