In Cheshire it is a custom to let out the water of the salt-springs after rain, in order to improve the character of the soil and make it more productive. If we call to mind the preservative properties of salt and the purifying action which it possesses, with regard to animal and vegetable substances, we need not at all be surprised at the above use to which it is put by the agriculturists of Cheshire. The reader, perhaps, would like to know why it is used after rain. After a heavy shower, and more especially in the country, every insect leaves its little secluded habitation: the bee is once more on the wing; the spider resumes his usual central position in his web; flies of all sizes buzz here and there in search of food or for more secure homes; every bush is alive with its usual occupants; the lofty tree is once more the tenement of song; the caterpillar crawls on his solitary way; the ant trudges along on the gravel-path; the snail emerges from his retreat and plods slowly to another home; and the earth-worm raises itself on the lawn; all with one accord hail the reappearance of sunshine, and show signs, however feeble, of joy that the rain-cloud has passed and that the landscape has resumed its beauties, and the sky its gold and azure. The earth after rain, and particularly in spring and summer, teems with almost reanimated life, both with that which is harmless and with that which is hurtful, so that the Cheshire custom is one which cannot be too highly recommended, for when the soil is saturated with moisture, a soluble salt like the chloride of sodium, already in a state of solution, sinks in more rapidly, and permeates it more thoroughly than if it were merely sprinkled over the surface; and such insects as are associated with or which live in the earth are speedily eliminated, or are forced to seek shelter at a greater depth, where they ultimately die by reason of their inability to obtain their proper sustenance or the unsuitableness of their new abode. There is a plant called Halimodendron which only grows in the dry, naked salt-fields by the river Irtysh, in Siberia; it is a genus of the Leguminosæ, and has purple flowers. Saltwort, or Salsola, (_salsus_, salt) is chiefly maritime, and the kelp of our shores is principally obtained from it. At one time the carbonate of soda was derived from this kelp or barilla, the ashes being obtained from burning sea-weeds and a species of Salsola; but now it is almost invariably made from common salt, by adding sulphuric acid, and so converting the chloride of sodium into a sulphate, and afterwards, by combustion with chalk and small coal, resolving it into a sulphide, and then into a carbonate. It is manufactured on a very large scale, and is an important staple of commerce. From it is obtained a most important drug, the bicarbonate of soda, the efficacy of which everyone, more or less, has once in a lifetime experienced.