The Portland daily press., 1878-05-06
AGRICULTURAL.
Salt as Fertilizer for Orchards.

About this date last year your correspon-
dent reported having made the experiments
of sowing salt at the rate of nearly ten bar.
rels to the acre, under some thirty apple trees
aged from IS to 20 years. Subsequently
he reported the trees having made
strong growth during the sum-
mer, with comparative freedom from twig
blight, so general on them in previous years,
and so common elsewhere the same season.
At the present date as apple orchards are
bursting into bloom, he is able to report two
strong. healthy trees IS years planted, with
II to-. Is inches diameter of trunk and II to
20 feet spread of limbs, set full of blossoms
for the first time, neither land both are bears
ing sorts) having never bloomed before, ex-
cept in the scantiest way. and both not hay
ing borne bushel of apples, the one, and the
smaller being an Autumn Sweet, and the
other a Fameuse or Snow apple. OF the 9th
er trees treated, two only absolutely refuse to
show bloom, but most of them moderately,
and what seems quite promising, Red As
tracan and Northern Spy, which bore i'm
mense crops in 1876, have blossoms enough
to make as much fruit as they can we'll carry
on to maturity. The trees look very healthy
and it would be unreasonable to refuse to be-
lieve the salt had been beneficial. But then,
the year previous to the spreading of the
salt, part of these trees were treated to a
light sowing, on the surface under them, of
wood ashes and ii is possible both the ashes
and salt acting together or the one after the
other may have produced the benefits no
ticed.
But I have preached the application of
wood and coal ashes to the terminal roots
of fruit trees too much not to show my faith
in the process by practicing it, and 1 have
just finished the operation on ~ apple trees
which were of the size and growth before
named. The operation consisted in opening
a narrow trench, spade-spit wide and two
splits deep, around each tree, about three feet
inside of the outside of the outer diameter
of the spread of the limbs, and then filing
iu the trenches with mixture of about one
third soil and two thirds such wood and coal
ashes as L could gather in the alleys Of a
neighboring town. Having good German
hand for the work, good tools and fine wealth
er, the cost was about 25 cents each tree.
Under the most favorable circumstances, a
small part of the benefit from the operation
can be looked for before another year, and
its full benefit not for two years; because the
materials for fruit crop are absorbed and
stored up the year before. Moreover, it is
just possible that the salt did nothing to
bring about the present fruitful condition
that being due to the exceptional character
of the season, as before noted in its bearing
on peaches, apples and wheat.
Nevertheless, if 1 had grapevine on
which the fruit rotted last year, and feared
the rot again-if my pears bllghted, or 1
dreaded its appearance-if [ had apple or
chards which refused to fruit, If it were not
convenient, either on account of the want of
time, money or material, for trenching, root
pruning and applying wood and coal ashes,
l certainly would, as soon as possible, SOW
orchard and vineyard, or portion of
both, with salt, and sow it to the extent
hat ho ~
white, by the sowing. And for this reason
if salt does no good of itself, it puts other
mineral matters into motion, and renders
matters soluble which were not soluble be-
fore. According to Prof. johnson How
Crops Feed, page 1851 when a solution of
common salt is leached through ordinary clay
soil, ''the soda of the salt is absolved by the
oil,while the chlorine passes through in conf
bination with lime, potash and magnesia."
Again, the same authority, on page 374, says:
"Any base brought into the soil in the form
of freely soluble salt, enters somewhat into
nearly soluble combinations, and liberates
corresponding quantity of other bases"
The salt sown under the orchard trees last
April was slowly dissolved by the summer
and fall rains, and soaking into the earth,
may have encountered potash, phosphoric
acid and lime, all of which have constant
tendency to stay near the surface. Obeying
the chemical law, they started down out OF
the way, to give place to the SOFA: met the
small feeding roots of the trees; were to
some extent absorbed by them, and the result
was shown in the increased health and vigor
of wood growth and foliage Immediately, and
in increased fruitfulness the succeeding year.
There is parallel of wants and demands
through all created nature. For man and for
all domesticated animals, and for the non-do
mesticated herbvora as well, the need of a
certain amount of salt, over and above that
found in food, has been recognized as imper-
alive; aud there are many reasons for beev-
ng that the growth and development of all
Tor nearly all) cultivated plants would be i'm
proved if salt were generally used as tonic
and a fertilizer. If ten thousand tons of it
were sown the present year, have no doubt
the profit would, as whole, equal ten dollars
on every dollar expended.-Co Country
Gentleman.