Show SALT SAIT POSTS A correspond ent of the chicago prairie sinner writes as follows touching a method for preserving posts Having just read an article on tho the pr preservation cherva cierva of timber in your paper of december ath and believing that some cheap certain and practical method of anestina tho the decay of timber and especially of fence posts would save an enormous amount of labor and expense pan so in in repairing fences overy every few years therefore I 1 will endeavor to give a cheap and certain method for the preservation of posts without cost of patent and yet it is a white substance which is easily obtained it is salt I 1 examined posts this season which a friend had set twenty five years ago 0 andyes and ot they bev show very little ai sign n of decay CY V how ow much h longer 1 nger they will wil I 1 I 1 last ti I 1 know 1 now not but Pres presumes urno from their present appearance that they will last some fifteen or twenty years yet another friend has bas two lines offense offence of fence which wore made as near alike as could be except the posts for one line were salted and tho the others were not these two lines were e built eight years ago and the difference is is now very perceptible the posts which not salted appear to bo be tired of standing for they are arc reeling in every direction w while hi le those which were stand firm and erect just as though they defied tho the ravages of time now for the process it is simple cheap and easy and without cost of patent and has been tested moro more than two years liko like that white substance which I 1 read oll ol boro bore two holes in each post with N ith an inch auger one so that it will be about six inches under ground when set and the other about a foot above the surface fill tho the holes nearly full of salt and plug them up with short pins to have the greatest effect posts should be baited and wet whilo the timber is so as to prevent tho the sap from gou souring ring which I 1 think is the start of decay the reasons why salt prevents the decy decay of wood I 1 am not chemist enough to fully explain pl in but facts demonstrate such much to be them the cuse case who over ever saw salt barrel staves rot will vill they not lie around for years without showing any signs of decay if in the meantime some old cow does not lick them to death |