The second proposition can be proved by an experi ment, which every farmer can make, simply by giving salt to one half of his cattle, and none to the other half: in less than a month there will be a perceptible difference in the appearance of the animals, in the sleekness of their coats, in their growth, and in their strength and firmness of labour; and these effects will be produced by little more than half their usual food.
The third proposition is supported by the practice in Arles, where the cattle have as much salt as they can eat, and none are so healthy, or thrive so fast, as those that cat most of it.
In Spain, where the finest wool in the world is pro duced, large quantities of salt are given to the sheep; to which they attribute in a great measure, the fine ness of the wool.
In England a thousand sheep consume at the rate of a ton of salt annually. It is supposed to destroy the fasciola hepatica, or fluke worm.
It has long been a practice in our country to give salt to horses, and to milch cows. About 1,000,000 tons are given to animals in England." We shall now Conclude this article with an account of the results obtained by Dr. Henry of Manchester, from an accurate analysis of various kinds of foreign and domestic salt, which we have extracted from his interesting paper on the subject, published in the Phi losophical Transactions for 1810. From these results
it will be seen, that foreign salt, in favour of which a prejudice has so long existed, in place of being supe rior to the Cheshire salt, is really inferior to it in those points on which its primary quality depends.
.Besides the works quoted under the different arti cles referred to in this work, the following books may be consulted.
Ludolf, Ilistoria Ethiopica. Brownrigg's .art of making Common Salt, 1748. Watson's Chemical says, vol. ii. Fossombroni on Salt Works, in the Socict. Italian. vol. vii. p. 57. Lee on enclosing a Salt Marsh, Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. viii. p. 114. Philosophical Transactions, No. 61. and 413. Wraxall's Memoirs of the Courts Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, 4.c. Leigh's History of Lancashire. Masson, Phil. Trans. vol. lxvi. p. 297. Dr. Henry, Phil. Trans. 1810. Dr. Rensselaer's Essay on Salt, New York, 1823; and Dr. Brewster's Edinburgh Jour nal of Science, vol. i. p. 384; and vol. iv.