ALBERT R. MANN 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 AT 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
S 657.861^°''"^" ""'"'""y Library 
 
 3 1924 003 365 230 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003365230 
 
SEWAGE lEEIGATION 
 BY FARMEES; 
 
 OK, 
 
 FIFTY INSTANCES OF PEOFITABLE 
 SEWAGE UTILIZATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. W. PEEEGEINE BIEOH, C.E., F.G.S. 
 
 polished by permission of the Council of the Institution of Swveyorst 
 
 London : E. & F. N. SPON, 46, CHARING CROSS. 
 New York: 446, BROOME STREET. 
 
 1879. 
 
^.r^^^ 
 
 UMIWRSsTYi 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In publishing this Paper I beg to acknowledge 
 most warmly the kind help that has been given 
 me by numerous gentlemen connected with the 
 localities referred to, and to inform them that 
 I shall be extremely grateful for any further 
 information available for another edition. 
 
 E. W. P. B. 
 
 5, WestmUstster Chambers, 
 
 London, S.W., Mmj 1878. 
 
THE 
 
 USE OF SEWAGE BY FAEMERS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 FIFTY INSTANCES OF PEOFITABLE SEWAGE ; 
 lEKIGATION. 
 
 The question of sewage disposal has generally been dealt 
 with from a lofty point of view, where gigantic figures 
 are used alike for describing the fortunes that are to be 
 made by one system and those that have been wasted by 
 another. This must be the case so long as powerful financial 
 companies are interested in some of the various methods 
 that have been propounded with a view to helping local 
 authorities out of their difficulties. 
 
 In the present Paper, addressed to the Institution of 
 Surveyors (which is understood to represent the manage- 
 ment of something like three-fifths of the landed property 
 of England), the subject will be treated from an agricultural 
 point of view. Many of the cases that will be referred to 
 are unknown to the public, for they are not such as would 
 be useful to opposing writers ; and it is hoped the best pos- 
 sible reason will be apparent why those most familiar with 
 them should be content for them to remain undiscussed. 
 Articles have been printed in London newspapers and 
 
tables have been published in books upon sewage disposal, 
 one after another, all showing that the attempts of sewage 
 companies and local boards to use sewage, make it portable, 
 or put it out of the way, have alike resulted in an expen- 
 diture of upwards of a shilling per head per annum ; and 
 this, although sewage contains materials which, but for 
 their encumbrance, would produce an income of ten 
 shillings per head per year to the ratepayer. What has 
 been truly said and written upon the subject has had the 
 effect, as might be expected, of making local authorities 
 cautious and slow to take any action. This is probably 
 as it should be. Let owners or occupiers of agricultural 
 land, however, not be alarmed at the failures of local 
 boards or public companies, but rather see that therein 
 is their opportunity to come forward and help the public 
 with considerable and increasing advantage to themselves. 
 Without going into the too-often-discussed question of 
 whether, speaking generally, irrigation is preferable to the 
 chemical processes as a method of sewage disposal, it may 
 be said that, from an agricultural point of view, it is better 
 worth trying to develop ; for, while under extremely 
 favourable circumstances every grain of manure may be 
 extracted from sewage by irrigation, there is not another 
 process by which, under any imaginable circumstances, 
 more than a small proportion of the valuable material 
 contained can be made use of. 
 
 In the following pages it will be attempted to show 
 that the use of sewage has proved advantageous to a 
 large number of agriculturists in various parts of Great 
 Britain ; and that the arrangements existing between rate- 
 payers and farmers, in the many instances where the latter 
 appear to be satisfied, are more favourable to the ratepayers 
 than what has been done by local authorities, in the way of 
 sewage utilization, upon their own account. If these points 
 
can only be made good, and the Institution of Surveyors 
 pretty well agi-eed, there can be little doubt that the 
 difficulties of rnany places will prove to be very much 
 less thari those which appear to surround the great ques- 
 tion as a whole. If this communication leads directly to 
 a single landowner or farmer using the sewage of a town 
 that has, hitherto, polluted a river, or to two men nego- 
 tiating with a town authority for its sewage, which, 
 hitherto, only one has been willing to take, then the time 
 spent upon it will not have been wasted. 
 
 That the use of sewage has proved advantageous to a 
 large number of agriculturists will appear from the follow- 
 ing notes, arranged according to the alphabetical position 
 of the initial letter of the place to which each one refers. 
 That the arrangements under which farmers can, and have, 
 used sewage are more favourable to ratepayers than the 
 efforts of their representative boards to do so have yet 
 proved, will be seen from a comparison between these 
 notes and Table No. 1,* which gives the cost of sewage 
 utilization by local authorities. This table has been 
 prepared from Local Government Board reports ; but the 
 annual cost of the capital laid out has been taken at 
 3^ per cent., which is the rate at which money can be 
 borrowed for sanitary improvements. Similar tables, as 
 printed in those reports, would make the comparison 
 appear still less favourable to the local boards, for in them 
 6 per cent, is allowed for capital expended : this extin- 
 guishes the debt in thirty years, although the work may 
 remain effective much longer, while, on the other hand, 
 in any arrangement with a farmer, the purificatioii of 
 sewage, and the payment of money, by whichever side, 
 are coterminous. 
 
 At Aberdeen there is an example of sewage utiliza- 
 
 * See p. 373. 
 
tion, with reference to which a few notes may be worth 
 making, although the authorities there do not profess to 
 have disposed of the whole of their sewage. 
 
 The corporation, some seven or eight years ago, made 
 an agreement for nineteen years, with a landowner to 
 supply him with what sewage he required . on fifty acres 
 of light land, upon his paying £5 an acre, or £250 a year, 
 for the use of it. 
 
 The land was expensively laid out by the owner (£30 
 or £40 an acre, it is said, having been spent upon it), and 
 for some years expensively managed. 
 
 Eye-grass, carrots, and turnips are the principal crops 
 grown, the latter being very valuable, as they are greatly 
 depended upon for cattle feed. 
 
 A year or two ago the proprietor attempted to show 
 the corporation, with a view to getting the sewage at a 
 reduced price, that he was losing money by the transac- 
 tion. To do this he debited the concern with the money 
 he had spent on the land and management, He failed, 
 however, to make good his point, and it is to be hoped 
 that by this time the profit is more decided. But the 
 object of this communication is not to persuade farmers 
 to sink £30 or £40 in an acre of land and then pay £5 a 
 year for sewage to put on it ; for a much smaller sacrifice 
 on their part will enable them to offer very satisfactory 
 terms to their urban neighbours. 
 
 At Aldershot, some fourleen years ago, Mr. Black- 
 BUEN levelled and prepared about 100. acres of heath land 
 for the reception of the sewage from the North Camp, 
 which contains an average population of 8,000. 
 
 The soil was a blowing sand, not worth, it is said a 
 shilling an acre; and it is understood that a lease of 
 sixteen years was granted, without any rent, in considera- 
 tion of the work and money expended by Mr. Blackburn 
 
in making the land lit for sewage purposes and starting 
 the farm. 
 
 Eye-graas, mangold-wurzel, and potatoes are the prin- 
 cipal crops. Part of the rye-grass land has been let to 
 neighbouring cowkeepers at £20 an acre. The potatoes 
 are used largely in the camp. Eeferring to them, Mr. 
 Blackbden said to a Committee of the House of Lords 
 in 1870: "The whole "time I have had the farm I have 
 not had two bushels of diseased potatoes in it." 
 
 No record of the cost of preparing the land is to be 
 obtained; but almost the whole of it must be due to 
 levelling the surface, and breaking up and draining the 
 ferruginous " pan " which underlies the soil of this part of 
 the Aldershot waste, for the carriers are of a most inex- 
 pensive kind, being merely cut in the ground or " built 
 up of tough sods." 
 
 In the growing season, or when a crop is being irri- 
 gated, the solid matter is extracted by subsidence, but not 
 when the sewage is being applied to rough ploughed land 
 iu winter. 
 
 A feature to be borne in mind in the Aldershot farm 
 is a steam pumping engine, which is used, in summer- 
 time, to raise water out of a brook on to the land, and 
 which " has proved most valuable." 
 
 At Altrincham, with a population between 12,000 and 
 13,000, the local board hired, some seven years ago, a 
 farm containing fifty-five acres of light, peaty land, on a 
 lease of twenty years, and at a rent of £4 an acre. This 
 land is suitably situated for the reception of the sewage 
 and the town, as might be expected, had to pay more for 
 it than its value to an ordinary farmer. Until quite 
 lately, the local board kept it in their own hands, and 
 found their returns fell short of their expenses by about 
 £130 a year. During that time it was found " that the 
 
cost of purifying the sewage averaged annually 5^d . per 
 head of the population contributing, or a rate of 2^cZ. in 
 the pound, including the repayment of principal and 
 interest on account of money expended in laying out and 
 draining the land." The farm is now let "for a term of 
 five years, at a lump rental, which results in a loss to the 
 board of £50 per annum. The tenant takes all the sew- 
 age, and clears the board of all liability for pollution of 
 streams, &c., and undertakes to maintain, the present 
 levels of the ground." It can be stated here, on good 
 authority, that after the expiration of the existing lease a 
 better rent will be obtained than the present, although 
 that is quite equal to what is paid by other occupiers in 
 the neighbourhood, for superior land. 
 
 The number of water-closets in the town may be taken 
 at a fifth or sixth of that of the houses. No provision has 
 been made for excluding surface-water from the sewers, 
 but there is an overflow, which acts in time of storms. 
 The carriers were made of earthenware channel-pipes; 
 but these have now been taken up in favour of simple 
 spade-cut grips. It was not found necessary to alter the 
 surface of the land much, for that was found " pretty well 
 adapted as to fall, &c." The solid matter is taken, by 
 means of a settling tank, from the sewage before the 
 latter is distributed. There has been no litigation, in 
 respect of this undertaking. Excellent crops have been 
 obtained, " the most suitable being rye-grass, turnips, and 
 mangolds " ; but wheat, oats, beans, cabbages, and celery 
 have done well. The town is considered to be satisfac- 
 torily free of its sewage difRculty. 
 
 At Bodmin, in Cornwall, with 4,000 inhabitants, three- 
 quarters of whom are supplied with water-closets, the 
 sewage has for three years been used, without any separa- 
 tion, upon seventeen acres of stiff meadow-land, under an 
 
agreement which, though temporary, involves no expense 
 to the rates. The sewage is distributed by means of con- 
 tour grips cut in the ground. 
 
 At Braintree, the sewage of about 5,000 inhabitants 
 has for many years been allowed to flow on the meadows 
 occupied by several farmers along the side of the Elver 
 Pont, and until within the last three or four years the 
 suspended matters were precipitated in tanks. Now, 
 however, the precipitation has been abandoned, and the 
 sewage is either distributed on 30 acres of gravelly land, 
 which belongs to the town and is farmed by the Surveyor, 
 or on to the farmer's meadows, which together amount to 
 another 25 acres. Half the board's land is irrigated by 
 gravity, the other half can only be reached by pumping. 
 The whole of it, except a small meadow let at nearly £6 an 
 acre, is arable, and although it has a very irregular but 
 considerable natural slope, it has been very satisfactorily 
 irrigated without any permanent work beyond the iron 
 rising main, the surface being unaltered, and the carriers 
 being ploughed each year in contours. Tremendous 
 crops of mangold are grown and sold by auction in small 
 lots on the ground, realising first-rate prices. There are 
 cottages within fifty or sixty yards of the sewage land, 
 but no complaints ; the occupiers occasionally using the 
 sewage on their own gardens. 
 
 At Carlisle, with 21,000 inhabitants, the sewage was 
 let for a nominal sum to Mr. Alexander McDougall 
 on a fifteen years' lease, which terminated in 1874. Mr. 
 McDougall irrigated about sixty acres of gravelly grass 
 land for which he paid £4 an acre, and let at £8 for 
 grazing purposes. The land was not levelled. The sewage 
 was distributed by means of portable wooden spouting. 
 
 The sanitary authority, before the termination of this 
 arrangement, were of opinion that sewage irrigation would 
 
be a proper and, possibly, profitable thing for them to 
 have in their own hands, and determined to purchase the 
 sixty acres already in use and some adjoining land for the 
 purpose. The necessary steps have been taken, and 
 irrigation will soon be started again on an extended scale 
 by the corporation. 
 
 The late tenant was not bound by his lease to taite 
 the whole sewage, but he could prevent any one else from 
 
 usmg it. 
 
 A number of suburban villas stands on the high 
 ground overlooking the meadows, at a distance of a very 
 few hundred yards, and more are now being built. 
 
 The effluent water was reported by the Eivers Pollu- 
 tion Commissioners to have been effectually purified. 
 
 At Chelmsford, the local board some ten years ago 
 leased the sewage of about 8,000 inhabitants to Mr. F. 
 Marriage, who had already had considerable experience 
 of sewage farming at Croydon. Mr. Marriage pays £30 
 a year for the sewage, and the board has to pump it to 
 the summit of his iarm, which is on light, loamy, gravelly 
 soil, and of which about 70 acres are irrigated. The farm 
 lies along the side of the Eiver Chelmer. The upper 
 part, having a considerable slope, is arable ; the lower part 
 consists of nearly flat meadows. In April last there were 
 about sixty milking cows in the yard, which are said to 
 be fed during the summer almost entirely on sewage 
 grown rye-grass, and there are a number of beasts grazing 
 .in the meadows. These meadows appeared to be full of 
 feed, and of a much greener hue than other land around 
 them. 
 
 The solid matter is roughly extracted by means of a 
 wattled screen placed across a pit, through which the sewage 
 passes. 
 
 The land is very inexpensively laid out ; the surface 
 
having been scarcely altered, and the permanent carriers, 
 of which, there are very few, consist merely of channels cut 
 in the ground, except where, for the sake of the passage 
 of traffic over them, they had to be made of socket-pipes. 
 The application of the sewage to the land results in 
 abundant crops of grass, cabbages, and roots ; and the ex- 
 perienced lessee has lately been endeavouring to arrange 
 for utilizing the sewage of the entire district of Chelms- 
 ford, Springfield, and Great Baddow ; but it is understood 
 that the combined sanitary authorities of the district are 
 taking steps to' purchase lands upon which the sewage can 
 be applied by gravity ; so that pumping will be entirely 
 dispensed with. No figures are at hand showing the 
 pecuniary results to the lessee, of his present farm, but it 
 has all the appearances of a highly profitable one. 
 
 Cheltenham, with a population of nearly 50,000 con- 
 tributing to its sewage, affords remarkable proof that the 
 refuse of a large town can be used by farmers in its 
 immediate neighbourhood, with considerable advantage to 
 themselves. 
 
 Here the corporation, about ten years ago, purcliased 
 by private treaty 131 acres of stiff meadow land. The 
 estate, which is situated in the parish of Boddington, 
 about two miles outside the town, cost £80 an acre, 
 including some cottages and timber. The sewage had 
 been for some years -previously precipitated with chemicals, 
 in two sets of tanks about a mile apart on the west side of 
 the town ; so these tanks were kept in use for settling and 
 straining the grosser suspended matter, and two outfall 
 sewers, amounting together to a length of 9,000 yards, 
 were constructed from them to the new farm. These, 
 together with such laying out as the land required, cost 
 £7,500. The preparation of land consisted principally in 
 subsoil drainage, for the surface has been scarcely altered. 
 
10 
 
 and the sewage is distributed over the farm by open 
 contour grips dug in the ground. 
 
 Although the two outfall sewers are a foot or two 
 below the surface of the ground iu which they are laid, 
 tliere is a considerable area of lower land close by, on to 
 which it is possible to discharge them at various points. 
 This natural advantage has not been neglected at Chelten- 
 ham, for, through the skilful management of the Surveyor, 
 no doubt, and owing to the wisdom of those occupying 
 land near the sewers, more than £100 a year is now 
 received by the corporation for sewage us'ed on private 
 property alone. In this manner sewage is retailed to ten 
 or twelve different occupiers, for the fertilization of over 
 300 acres of land, independently of that belonging to the 
 town. Seven shillings per acre per dressing is the rate at 
 which the sewage has generally been poured into private 
 lands ; but in one case— that of a large dairy farmer 
 occupying the nearest available land to the town — a 
 standing agreement exists that he shall take a certain 
 proportion of the sewage on to his farm, and pay the town 
 £40 a year. This agreement is not with an amateur or 
 enthusiast, but with a practical farmer who, having had 
 ten years' experience of sewage utilization, is now irrigat- 
 ing about a hundred acres of meadow and arable land of 
 the Arle Court Dairy Earm, and feeding, with the produce 
 of it, 120 head of cow cattle, 90 of which he milks for the 
 supply of Cheltenham. Mangold-wurzel seem to be his 
 favourite root crop, for a large extent of land is devoted 
 to mangold this year which has borne the same crop the 
 last four years. Koots grown on this land, under sewage, 
 won first prizes at the annual show at Cheltenham, till 
 they were excluded from competition with the produce of 
 ordinary farms ; they were then shown with equal success, 
 and the same result, at Gloucester. They appear to keep 
 
11 
 
 as well as roots grown on unsewaged land, for, in February- 
 last, there were many more in stock than would be used 
 by the Arle Court Dairy, and they were being sold at best 
 market price, customers coming for them daily. The 
 sewage was carried from one part of the farm to another 
 in open channels cut in the ground, or, where the ground 
 was too low, in a raised bank of turf. It is worth 
 mentioning that many hundred yards of these channels 
 are cut in meadow land, and the sewage flows and the 
 cattle graze without either, apparently, interfering with 
 the other. The land at Arle Court, so far as this has 
 been done at all, has been prepared at the expense of the 
 occupier, and he does a little in the way of levelling every 
 year. He keeps a man, whose only duty it is to attend 
 to the flow of the sewage, the surface of the ground, and 
 the condition of the channels. 
 
 With this exception, the whole of the sewage is distri- 
 buted, by two irrigators constantly employed by the town, 
 on private' lands when the occupiers require it, and, at 
 other times, on such parts of the corporation land as they 
 consider best, with a view to sewage purification. Sub- 
 mitting to these conditions, cowkeepers in the neighbour- 
 hood have annually tendered for the land at prices 
 varying from £6 to £9 an acre. It is now let for three 
 years at £800 a year, or a little over £6 an acre, to a 
 tenant who sub-lets it to several smaller occupiers. Each 
 field receives from three to five dressings a year, but it is 
 said that in a dry summer the occupiers would be glad of 
 two or three extra ones. Mr, Woodward, who hires the 
 whole farm, considers that " sewage pays best on poor, 
 hilly, heavy grass land, as it makes one acre worth five." 
 The following is a balance sheet referring to the sewage 
 farm and liquid sewage, from which it will be seen that 
 the receipts are nearly enough to repay the cost of outfall 
 
12 
 
 works as well as that of purifying the sewage. The 
 straining is carried on at the tanks, and the solid matter 
 is mixed with town ashes and sold to farmers at 2s. 6d. a 
 cube yard. If the ashes be regarded as valueless refuse, 
 an average profit of over £50 appears to result from this 
 part of the business. 
 
 1871 
 
 RECEIPTS. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Renta 899 12 
 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 Lands .... 75 10 
 
 Deficiency . . . . 134 15 
 
 PAYMENTS. 
 
 £ 8. d. 
 
 Tradesmen's 
 Bills, and other Ex- 
 penses . . . . 286 2 11 
 
 Rates and Taxes . . 26 19 8 
 
 Interest on Loan for 
 Land and "Works . 796 14 5 
 
 £1,109 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 £1,109 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 1872. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rents 868 
 
 15 
 
 10 
 
 Wages, Tradesmen's 
 
 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 
 
 Bills, and other Ex- 
 
 
 Lands .... 142 
 
 
 
 
 
 penses .... 280 15 
 
 5 
 
 Deficiency . . . 80 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 Rates and Taxes . . 27 14 
 Interest on Loan for 
 Land and Works . 782 17 
 
 10 
 
 
 £1,091 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 £1,091 7 
 
 3 
 
 1873. 
 
 Rents, &c 936 19 
 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 Lands . . . . 131 10 
 Deficiency .... 38 7 
 
 £1,106 16 11 
 
 Wages, Tradesmen's 
 Bills, and other Ex- 
 penses .... 
 
 Rates and Taxes . 
 
 Interest on Loan for 
 Land and Works . 
 
 d. 
 
 286 7 
 52 2 11 
 
 7G8 7 
 i'1,106 16 11 
 
13 
 
 1874. 
 
 EEOEIPTS. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Eents, &o. . ' . . . 848 14 9 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 I^§nds .... 86 12 6 
 
 Deficiency . . . . 118 4 1 
 
 PAYMENTS. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 Wages, Tradesmen's 
 Bills, and other Ex- 
 penses .... 253 3 4 
 Rates and Taxes . . 47 4 
 Interest on Loan for 
 
 Lands and Works . 753 4 
 
 £1,05»11 
 
 4 
 
 £ 
 
 1,053 U 
 
 4 
 
 
 18 
 
 75. 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £ 3. 
 
 d. 
 
 Eents, &c 890 8 
 
 5 
 
 Wages, Tradesmen's 
 
 
 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 
 Bills, and otlier Ex- 
 
 
 
 Lauds . . . . 145 18 
 
 
 
 penses .... 
 
 396 5 
 
 4 
 
 Deficiency . . , . 128 11 
 
 
 
 Bates and Taxes . . 
 Interest on Loan for 
 
 31 4 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Tjand and Works . 
 
 737 7 
 
 4 
 
 £1,164 17 
 
 5 
 
 £1,164 17 
 
 5 
 
 187G. 
 
 £ 3. d. 
 
 Eents 853 6 6 
 
 Fluid Sewage on adjacent 
 
 Lands .... 130 5 6 
 
 Deficiency .... 55 14 7 
 
 £1,039 6 7 
 
 £ 3. d. 
 
 Wages, Tradesmen's 
 Bills, and other Ex- 
 penses .... 268 1 10 
 
 Eates and Taxes . . 50 8 3 
 
 Interest on Loan for 
 Laud and Works . 720 16 6 
 
 £1,039 6 7 
 
 At GTiorley, in Lancashire, the sewage is conveyed to 
 two farms (principally arable), the one laid out at a cost 
 of £20 an acre and worked by the Improvement Commis- 
 sioners, the other being provided with simple spade-made 
 grips contouring the ground. The latter is let to a tenant 
 under a yearly agreement, at a rent beyond what the 
 
14 
 
 board has to pay ; while the farm in the board's own 
 hands cannot be made to pay its working expenses, exclu- 
 sive of rent. 
 
 At Cleator Moor, in Cumberland, the sewage from 
 1,373 houses, or about 8,000 peopIe,'is removed from,the 
 town by means of four outfalls, discharging on to some 
 forty acres of heavy pasture lands in the occupation o* 
 private people. 
 
 The present system has been in operation about three 
 years ; but the local board has no agreement either with 
 the owners or occupiers of the land under sewage. In 
 two cases, the land is farmed by the owners ; but in each 
 case the sewage is taken by the occupier for the sake of 
 its agricultural value alone. The grass crops have been 
 very much improved by the sewage ; and one farmer has- 
 just bought a steam engine, and is laying down iron pipes, 
 with a view to sewaging some of his land which is too high 
 to be irrigated by gravity alone. Irrigation and grazing 
 have been carried on together with no mischievous result. 
 
 The greater part of the solid matter is extracted by 
 means of settling ponds ; it is then mixed with town 
 ashes, and taken away by farmers. The board have had 
 no trouble by reason of river pollution ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, provision was not made in the town for the exclu- 
 sion of surface water from the sewers, and, on the 
 occurrence of storms or heavy rains, it is found that the 
 volume of water becomes rather difficult to deal with, as 
 it makes a disturbance in the settling ponds, and carries 
 over the suspended matter, besides polluting the water- 
 course to a certain extent. 
 
 The local board has only spent £500 on outfall works, 
 including damage to property during their construction, 
 and the working expenses which the board pay, in connec- 
 tion with the settling ponds, amount to about £2 a year. 
 
15 
 
 At CoQkermouth, a thoroughly water-closeted town, 
 with a population of 5,115, 16 acres of low-lying but 
 gravelly grazing land were hired by the local board some 
 two years ago, on lease for 21 years, with power to sub- 
 let, subject to the tenant previously in occupation having 
 the refusal. 
 
 It does not appear what the board has to pay for the 
 land, but the original tenant continues to occupy it, and 
 pays a pound an acre more than he gave the owner, 
 binding himself to receive the whole of the sewage, and 
 keep it out of the Eiver Derwent, by which the field is 
 skirted on one side. This land is irrigated and grazed at 
 the same time, and cattle have been frequently seen 
 drinking the sewage in preference to the river water. 
 The sewage passes through tanks, from which the sludge 
 is pumped by hand. This, when dry, is sold at 2s. 6d. 
 a cubic yard, a price which produces a profit upon the 
 labour. 
 
 The field was nearly level, so that the surface was 
 scarcely altered. The carriers were made entirely with 
 spade and plough, at a very trifling cost ; and there are 
 no working expenses paid out of the rates. No provision 
 has been made in the town to keep surface or subsoil 
 water out of the sewers ; but it is considered that it 
 would be better if there were, for a large quantity of sub- 
 soil water percolates into the main sewer, which is of 
 brick, and, together with the surface water, adds to the 
 risk and difficulty in tinaes of sudden thunderstorms, when 
 a very little neglect on the part of the tenant might 
 cause the sewage to run over the land, straight into the 
 river. 
 
 At Crediton, in Devonshire, the sewage of about 4,000 
 people, generally provided with water-closets, has for many 
 years been used on grass land just outside the town. It is 
 
 c 2 
 
16 
 
 now let for seven, ten, or fourteen years, to three land- 
 owners, who pay together £40 a year for the privilege of 
 using it .upon some 60 acres of meadow land. About 
 25 acres are let annually by auction, and have realized £8 
 and £10 an acre. The auction this spring, which was not 
 so satisfactory — owing, it is said, to a general abundance of 
 feed in the neighbourhood — resulted in an average price of 
 about £7. A considerable amount of spring water joins the 
 sewage before it reaches the land. 
 
 The carriers are simple grips contouring the ground ; 
 the soil is heavy and red. No solid matter is extracted 
 from the sewage before it is applied to the land. Beyond 
 the cost of sewering the streets, the sewage disposal involves 
 no expense to the rates. During " most of the summer " 
 it is considered that the meadows do not require the 
 sewage, and it is not then used, 
 
 Denbigh, with a population of 5,823, is now being 
 sewered, the " separate system " being in some measure 
 adopted, as an old rubble drain which discharges straight 
 into a brook is left to carry away surface and subsoil 
 water. The use of the sewage has been let at £110 a 
 year (£100, however, being allowed to the tenant out of 
 the first two years' rent) for 30 years to Mr. Hughes, of 
 Kinmel, who has 250 acres of mixed soil at a suitable 
 altitude for irrigation without pumping. Simple tanks are 
 to be provided for the separation of suspended matters, 
 when necessary. The nearest houses to the land which is 
 to be sewaged are at a distance of about a furlong. 
 
 At Devizes the sewage of some 7,000 people has, for the 
 last ten years, been discharged into an ancient watercourse, 
 which from time immemorial has been diverted on to 
 pasture lands a quarter of a mile below the town. The 
 soil of these meadows is light, and they are said to 
 command high rents. 
 
17 
 
 Thero is no charge upon the rates for working expenses 
 in connection with the disposal of the sewage, and the town, 
 which has water-closets almost througliout, is considered, by 
 those in a position to judge, to be satisfactorily free of the 
 sewage difficulty. It appears, however, that at haymaking 
 time and just before it, the sewage is sometimes not dealt 
 with at all. 
 
 At Doncasfer the sewage of about 20,000 people has for 
 the last five years been pumped on to a farm the property 
 of the corporation. This farm, which consists of 263 acres 
 of light, gravelly land worth, without sewage, from 15s. to 
 40s. an acre, is let on a fourteen years' lease at a rent of 
 £800, or rather more than £3 an acre. The surface of 
 the ground was but slightly altered. The sewage is de- 
 livered on to the various high points in the farm by means 
 of iron and earthenware pipes, either laid at a sufficient 
 depth below the surface to be out of the way of the plough, 
 or else under the fence along the headland, and then dis- 
 tributed by contour grips simply ploughed or dug in the 
 ground. Nine-tenths of the farm is arable ; about 40 acres 
 of this are devoted to Italian rye-grass, and six or seven to 
 market-garden stuff, such as rhubarb, strawberries, goose- 
 berries, currants, and cabbage, cauliflower, &c. Eye-grass 
 is always cut four times a year here, and in some seasons 
 might be cut a fifth time. Mangold do well, and keep as 
 well as mangold grown in the ordinary way. They^were 
 being used on the 16th of last April. A large storage 
 reservoir w as provided, when the farm was laid out, for use 
 when for any reason it might be thought undesirable to 
 put the sewage on the land ; but this has been abandoned 
 upwards of three years, and the sewage is now sent on to 
 the land at all seasons with as little delay as possible. 
 
 Edinburgh, probably, from an agricultural point of 
 view, affords the most remarkable instance of sewage 
 
18 
 
 utilization that is to be found anywhere, although the 
 supply of sewage is, owing to the city being so close to 
 the sea, far in excess of the requirements of the limited 
 area of agricultural land in its immediate neighbourhood.* 
 The sewage of certain districts of Edinburgh has long 
 been used in rough and rude irrigation, in some cases since 
 1760, the lands irrigated being known as the Craigentinny 
 Meadows, which have an area of about 220 acres, " Loch- 
 end " Meadows, about 28 acres, " Lochryn-on-Dalry " 
 Meadows, about 40 acres, and " Brigend " and " Cairn 
 Tows" Meadows, about 35 acres, making a total of 323 
 acres. There are about 250 acres of the Craigentinny 
 and Lochend Meadows under sewage irrigation ; of these 
 200 acres are permanent pasture grasses, and 50 acres 
 Italian rye-grass. About 2,500,000 gallons of crude sew- 
 age, every twenty -four hours, flows through the "Foul 
 Burn " on to the meadows. The grass is sold by public 
 roup at the beginning of April in each year, in allotments 
 of from half a statute acre to one acre in area, at prices 
 varying from £20 to £40 per acre, per annum ; one allot- 
 ment (acre) sold last year for £44 15s. The permanent 
 grass is used for cow feeding, and is bought by dairymen, 
 at Musselburgh, Portobello, Leith, and Edinburgh, who 
 have to cut and remove it. This is done about four times 
 in the season, and yields an aggregate crop of about 40 
 tons to the acre. The Italian rye-grass is cut five times 
 a year, and produces occasionally 60 tons to the acre. 
 The irrigation is carried on in the cheapest and rudest 
 way by the owners of the land adjoining the streams of 
 sewage, no cost having been incurred in providing per- 
 manent carriers of either wood, iron, stoneware, or brick- 
 \vork. A considerable portion of the sewage is absorbed 
 by the "sea sand" of which the irrigated meadows of 
 
 * Local Government Blue Book, 1876 — Sewage Disposal. 
 
19 
 
 Craigentinny Farm is composed, and thus the soakage of 
 sewage from this land into the " Firth of Forth " is only 
 partially purified. 
 
 The annual cost of applying the sewage and receipts 
 for the produce are : — 
 
 Eeoeipts. 
 
 £ 
 250 Statute Acres of grass, 
 at an average of £30 per 
 acre 7,500 
 
 £7,500 
 
 BxPENDITUEB, 
 
 £ 
 
 Wages of- Watermen, three 
 in summer and one in, 
 ■winter, and cost of clean- 
 ing out carriers . . . 180 
 
 Estimated Bent of Land, 
 250 acres at £2 per 
 annum* 500 
 
 Balance 6,820 
 
 £7,500 
 
 About eight acres of the Craigentinny Farm, which is 
 land of excellent natural quality, but too high to be 
 irrigated by gravity, has had sewage pumped on to it by 
 steam power. This land has received about 3000 tons of 
 sewage per acre, in six or eight dressings, during the 
 year; and the rye-grass growing on it has realized from 
 £25 to £36 an acre, prices equal to those obtained at 
 " Lochend," where four times the quantity of sewage has 
 been applied. 
 
 At Guisborough (Yorkshire), in 1871, the local 
 authority, having been threatened with litigation, entered 
 into an agreement with Admiral Ohalonee, who owns 
 considerable property in the immediate neighbourhood, to 
 deliver on to land of his, about 800 yards from the town, 
 the wbole sewage, for a term of twenty-one years com- 
 mencing on the 1st of January, 1872. 
 
 Admiral Ohaloner was to do all the work within the 
 limits of his own land, and pay to the local board a rent of 
 
 * First Report of RiverB Pollution Commissioners (Mersey and Kibble 
 
20 
 
 £5 a year for the sewage, with all liabilities. About 21^ 
 acres of old grass land, part of which had been very good 
 and part a complete bog, were prepared for sewage at a 
 cost of £1,556. This work included thorough deep 
 drainage, a considerable amount of levelling, laying 
 carriers, and making new roads, besides building a cottage 
 for the man in charge. 
 
 Here the sewage of about 6,000 people, to whom water- 
 closets are only now being introduced, is distributed over 
 the land in the condition in which it leaves the sewers, 
 without separation or deodorization of any sort, 
 
 Italian rye-grass, it is said, certainl)' pays best. The 
 average price per acre received for rye-grass was, in 1872, 
 £10 7s. 2d.; in 1873, £15 5s. 2d. ; in 1874, £24 18s. lid. ; 
 in 1875, £26 ; and in 1876, which was a very unfavourable 
 year for selling cut grass, only £17 18s. Last summer 
 and autumn were both wet and cold, and only three 
 cuttings were obtained, which realized together an average 
 of £12 lis. 3d. an acre. Mangold, turnips, and carrots 
 have been found to answer best as root crops, and rhubarb 
 has paid very well, but that can only be sold in ■ small 
 quantities at Guisborough. 
 
 A profit and loss account has been kept since the farm 
 was started, and after allowing £2 an acre for rent, and 
 five per cent, upon the £1,556, besides paying all expenses, 
 the following balances appear : — 
 
 £ 8. -d. 
 For 1872, a loss of ... . 47 3 5 
 
 „ 1873, a profit of 
 
 „ 1874, „ 
 
 „ 1875, 
 
 „ 1876, „ 
 
 Less 
 
 This gives an average profit of 
 
 45 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 163 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 140 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 50 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 £399 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 47 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 £351 
 
 17 
 
 9 
 
 £70 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
21 
 
 Or enough to pay an additional 4J per cent, on the capital 
 sunk, making altogether 9^ per cent. Last year, owing to 
 the unfavourable season, barely 5 per cent, was realized 
 upon the outlay. Notwithstanding the unsatisfactory sale 
 of rye-grass during the last two years, the plant, Admiral 
 Chalonee considers, improves year by year, which con- 
 vinces him that the land has permanently benefited by the 
 application of sewage. The soil, generally, is heavy, but 
 loamy. Admiral Chalonee believes that a large quantity 
 of water, which bothers him considerably in times of 
 extreme wet, might be easily diverted from the sewers. 
 This, evidently, was not considered to be an object when 
 the sewers were constructed; but it appears that the 
 importance of keeping as much surface water as possible 
 out of the sewage is now recognized by the local authority, 
 who are likely to carry out some inexpensive alteration in 
 the town sewers for the relief of the sewage farm. 
 
 At Handsworth, near Sheffield, the sewage of one 
 outfall, which serves a population of about a thousand, has 
 for the last 14 years been used by the occupier of some 
 land through which the outfall sewer passes. He applies 
 it to grass land, and also very considerably to rhubarb, 
 during the winter months. The sewage has occasionally 
 been intercepted by another occupier of land higher up 
 the sewer. This has been very much to the annoyance of 
 the gentleman who first took it, and who is said to con- 
 sider that long usage, or some other circumstance, has 
 given him a kind of ownership in the liquid. 
 
 No money has been spent in levelling the land, which 
 is of a moderately stiff character. The sewage is spread 
 over the land by means of grips cut in the ground and 
 wooden spouting. In this way it covers an area of some 
 12 acres. Grazing and irrigation go on together in the 
 same field, when convenient. 
 
22 
 
 Hoddesdon, a village of 2,000 inhabitants, in Hert- 
 fordshire, has been lately sewered by the rural sanitary 
 authority, and about 17 acres of gravelly land, almost 
 devoid of soil, were taken, on a 21 years' lease, from the 
 Marquis of Salisbury, for the disposal of the sewage. 
 
 The surface of the ground, which has a considerable 
 natural slope in one direction, has been but little altered. 
 It has, however, been provided with an earthenware carrier 
 along its upper edge, a covered settling tank, capable of 
 being completely emptied on to the lower part of the 
 land, only, and a wooden building, consisting of stable, 
 carthouse, and labourers' rooms. 
 
 At Michaelmas, 1876, a tenant was found for this 
 sewage land, who occupies a considerable acreage of 
 market garden ground in the neighbourhood, and supplies 
 the London markets. He has been granted a 14 years' 
 lease at a rent of £4 an acre, and now after a year and a 
 half's trial appears to be well satisfied with his prospects. 
 In March last he was cutting sewage-grown brocoli which 
 he considered " pictures," " more like cauliflowers than 
 brocoli." He is also growing cabbages, beans, and other 
 vegetables. 
 
 Surface water is kept out of the sewers to a consider- 
 able extent, but the tenant would prefer to have had this 
 done more completely. 
 
 The tank is no longer used for the retention of solid 
 matter, the sewage being allowed to run on the land as it 
 comes from the sewer. The land is close to Rye House 
 Eailway Station and several cottages. Its rent, without 
 sewage, had been 22s. 6d. an acre, which amount is 
 believed to be all that is paid for some of the adjoining 
 land. 
 
 Leamington, with 22,000 inhabitants, has been as 
 fortunate as Denbigh in being able to sell its sewage for 
 
23 
 
 agricultural purposes; but, unhappily, Lord Warwick, 
 who undertook, in 1871, to pay £450 a year for the 
 sewage for thirty years, requires it to be delivered on to a 
 farm of his, called Heathcote Farm, which is at a distance 
 of two miles from, and at an altitude 130 feet greater 
 than, the old sewer outfall into the river. Previously to 
 the agreement with Lord Warwick, the corporation had 
 spent £8,000 in precipitation works (which have since 
 been abandoned), £5,000 in defending a Chancery suit, 
 and £1,500 in cleaning out the Biver Learn, in con- 
 sequence of an injunction in Chancery. The new pump- 
 ing station, rising main, &c., including all necessary 
 works up to the point of delivery at the summit of the 
 farm, cost £16,239, and the working expenses of the 
 pumping establishment amount to £1,035 a year ; so, if 
 the capital be borrowed at 3J per cent., the cost of send- 
 ing the sewage to Lord Warwick's farm would be, £568 
 interest on loan, flus £1,035, or £1,603 a year. This 
 annual payment may be regarded as almost entirely due 
 to the unfortunate fact that Lord Warwick's land hap- 
 pened to be above the town instead of just below it. 
 What has to be dealt with in this Paper, however, is prin- 
 cipally the question of whether sewage can be advan- 
 tageously used by farmers when they have it delivered at 
 a suitable altitude. Only such facts, therefore, as have a 
 bearing upon that question will here be referred to. 
 
 Heathcote Farm contains about 310 acres, which are 
 irrigated. The soil is mainly loam over gravel or marl, 
 but about a fourth part is clay ; the whole being " rather 
 of a second quality as regards natural fertility." * 
 
 Although the rain-water falling on some of the streets 
 is excluded from the sewers, they receive all that is col- 
 lected by roofs of houses and yards. In very wet weather 
 
 * Chalmers Morton. 
 
24 
 
 more water reaches the pumping station than can be dealt 
 with by the pumps or the reservoir (which is of sufficient 
 capacity for the sewage of a night or a dry Sunday), and 
 an overflow occurs into the Learn. 
 
 The cost of pumping unnecessary or useless water, and 
 the desirability of water supplying a river having to pass 
 through sewers and sewage-tanks, will not be discussed 
 here ; but Captain Fosbeey, Lord Warwick's agent, who 
 has had the general management of the farm ever since, 
 and even before it was sewaged, says it is most certainly 
 desirable, from his point of view, that provision should be 
 made for the further exclusion of surface-water from the 
 sewers, although in dry seasons any supply from which 
 the summer flow of sewage might be increased would be 
 of the greatest service to the. occupier of the land. 
 
 The quantity of sewage pumped daily on to the farm 
 varies from 800,000 to 1,000,000 gallons. It is, therefore, 
 rather dilute, and by the process of pumping made more 
 even in quality and appearance than might otherwise be 
 the case. It is, however, delivered on to the land as it 
 reaches the pumping station, thick and thin together, 
 with the exception of such chance materials as may be 
 kept back for the safety of the pumps. 
 
 The land was laid out under Captain Fosbeet's 
 supervision, at a cost of about £7 an acre, including drain- 
 age to a depth of 4 or 5 feet. The surface was altered 
 but very little ; the position of the carrier, and even the 
 number of carriers, by which the sewage is introduced to 
 the field, having been, it seems, governed by the natural 
 lie of the land — a plan preferable to the too common 
 practice of paring down the surface and robbing it of soil 
 till it can be irrigated from channels drawn with a 
 parallel ruler. 
 
 From the accompanying table it will be seen that this 
 
25 
 
 farm has been worked with a view to producing milk 
 meat, and grain. 
 
 With reference to the former, Lord Warwick has a 
 satisfactory contract with a milkman in Leamington, 
 under which his lordship supplies him with the produce 
 of fifty good dairy shorthorns : 
 
 " Four men are daily engaged in distributing the 
 sewage, generally at as many different points upon the 
 farm, according to the needs of the crop, or of the land, or 
 the power of the soil on different fields, to deal with it at 
 such times, as it is not wanted for the promotion of 
 current growth. These four men are, however, available 
 for other work during a great part of their time. During 
 spring and summer they are employed in cutting grass 
 for purchasers, who bring their carts for its removal, pay- 
 ing from 8d. to a shilling a rod for the grass as it is cut. 
 They receive 17s. a week, besides Is. an acre for the grass 
 they cut, and can generally make about 21s. a week 
 during the year. The water is in autumn and winter 
 roughly directed by plough and spade-made furrows 
 over the stubbles and the fallow intended for next year's 
 beans, oats, barley, and mangold- wurzel. In spring and 
 summer, the Italian rye-grass takes most of it, but man- 
 golds, cabbages, and various garden crops are watered as 
 they want it " ; root crops, however, with the exception of 
 cabbages, Mr. Tough, Lord Warwick's bailiff, says, never 
 have sewage applied to them before May or Jime. 
 
 Immense crops of mangold are grown ; the yield of 
 1874, in two large fields, is said to have been in several 
 places where the weight was taken over half a ton to the 
 rod. 
 
 As many as ten silver cups have been won by roots 
 grown on this farm with sewage, besides a number of 
 money prizes. 
 
26 
 
 The sewage, when not required upon the Heathcote 
 Farm, is supplied in considerable quantities (as will be 
 seen from the table) to six of Lord Warwick's tenants 
 who occupy adjoining farms, and who, together, have 
 irrigated over 200 acres of their own holdings. In each 
 of these cases Lord Warwick has constructed the works 
 necessary to deliver the sewage on to the nearest point of 
 the farm, and the tenant has made the carriers necessary 
 for distribution. These generally consist of grips cut in 
 the ground or built up above it with turf, and are of a 
 very inexpensive character. 
 
 Sewage is used by the tenants upon grass and arable 
 land. The receipts from this source amounted to £46 in 
 1875, and to £60 in 1877. 
 
 There are a number of cottages on the sewage farm, 
 and the families have been singularly free from any 
 illness. 
 
 Captain Fosbert is able to state that, notwithstanding 
 the £450 a year with which the concern is unfortunately 
 debited, the returns have been sufScient to pay a very 
 good interest on the capital expended, after deducting 
 rent and all working expenses. 
 
 At Leek, in Staffordshire, the sewage of some 12,000 
 inhabitants, about a third of whom are provided with 
 water-closets connected with the sewers, is carried out of 
 the town by two outfalls, which discharge on to grass 
 lands belonging to private gentlemen. The sewers were 
 constructed in their present position on condition that 
 certain owners should make what use they pleased of the 
 sewage, without any liability for river pollution through 
 neglecting to use it. This appears a one-sided arrange- 
 ment, but it has been found to act very well for upwards 
 of fifteen years ; for the sewage from the southern outfall, 
 which is rather more than half, is used over some 60 acres 
 
27 
 
 of sloping grass land of a generally light character in the 
 occupation of several different farmers, who would be glad 
 to increase the area under irrigation, if more sewage were 
 available. The northern outfall discharges on to some low 
 flat alluvial meadows, about 70 acres of which absorb all 
 the sewage that comes to them during nearly the whole 
 year. There are, however, six weeks or two months at 
 hay-time, when it is found more convenient to let the 
 sewage of the northern outfall flow away without passing 
 over the land. 
 
 This town may be said to be bounded on two sides by 
 sewage fields ; yet some very elaborate returns which have 
 been most carefully and ably kept by the sanitary inspector 
 for many years, show that its sanitary condition has been 
 very much improved by the works that remove the refuse 
 of the town from beneath the ground on which it stands 
 to the surface of that immediately adjoining it, while it is 
 a well-known fact that one field which is sewaged at Leek, 
 is let at £7 10s. an acre, and the adjoining one, not 
 sewaged, at £3 15s. 
 
 The sewage of Leek is disposed of so as to keep the 
 town in a healthy condition and free from litigation, and 
 to keep some of the agricultural parishioners supplied 
 with an article they are glad to make use of, without any 
 expense to the ratepayers. No money has been spent 
 upon levelling the land, and,^ with one very slight 
 exception, the surface carriers are merely plough and 
 spade-made channels. 
 
 Longton affords an example of how a landowner may, 
 with due consideration for his own interests, offer more 
 satisfactory terms to a local authority for its sewage 
 disposal than the authority can obtain by other means. 
 This borough has a population of about 20,000, and is one 
 of that closely-packed group of pottery towns, the greater 
 
28 
 
 number of which are still in the utmost doubt and diffi- 
 culty in reference to sewage matters. It has, however, 
 been fortunate enough to secure an arrangement with the 
 Duke of SuTHEELAND under which his GrJ'ace has con- 
 structed 1256 yards of outfall sewer and undertaken on 
 being paid £500 annually to deal with the sewage of the 
 borough and all its liabilities for a term of twenty-one 
 years. The Duke had had some experience of sewage 
 farming, for at the very spot where the new outfall sewer 
 leaves the public street is a greengrocer's shop with about 
 twelve acres of market garden behind it, on which the 
 sewage of the adjoining districts of Dresden and Florence 
 (containing together five or six thousand people) has been 
 used for four years. The market gardener pays his Grace 
 a very high market-garden rent for these twelve acres, 
 and supplies the town from them with rye-grass and 
 vegetables. 
 
 The new main sewer intercepts the sewage of Florence 
 and Dresden, as well as that of Longton, and is made to 
 supply the market garden, which it passes through on its 
 way to the larger farm which is now being laid out. 
 About 120 acres are already under sewage, and let to the 
 market gardener above referred to ; but many hundred 
 acres of the Duke's land is favourably situated for the 
 reception of the sewage, and much of this, it is said, will 
 be gradually brought under sewage cultivation. Beyond 
 the grubbing of hedges, the surface of the land has 
 scarcely been altered. The soil is stiff, and the tenant 
 considers that the " separate system " of sewers, which has 
 been adopted in Longton, is very desirable. Eye-grass 
 can be cut only four times a year, but there is a good 
 market for it in the town, and it is found very profitable. 
 
 At Mansfield, where there are about 12,000 inhabitants 
 and 300 water-closets, the sewage of the whole town goes 
 
29 
 
 straight into the River Maun, which more than forty 
 years ago was diverted at a point just below the town by 
 the late Duke of Portlanb into a cut called the " Flood 
 Dyke," made for the purpose of irrigating his now 
 celebrated Clipstone Meadows. 
 
 These meadows comprise an area of upwards of 300 
 acres of land, extending over a distance of about seven 
 miles in length. They are watered by the River Maun 
 as it flows eastward from' the town of Mansfield. The 
 value of the land has been raised from the annual sum 
 of £80 to that of £3,660, at a cost (from their commence- 
 ment in 1816 to their completion in 1837) of £40,000. 
 The profit of each acre after defraying all expenses has 
 been computed at nearly £12 a year, without taking 
 into consideration the great benefit they are to the arable 
 land adjoining them. 
 
 In February last, the Flood Dyke, a canal some 
 20 feet wide, was carrying a sluggish flow of dirty black 
 water which it discharged at intervals on to dark green 
 sloping meadows, at the foot of which, in the bed of the 
 old river, ran a stream of tail water sufficiently clear for 
 fish and stones to be easily counted at the bottom. 
 
 The Duke's steward, Mr. Henry Wood, has kindly 
 reported, for the purposes of this Paper, that there is no 
 season of the year at which the water cannot with 
 advantage be turned on to the meadows, and that the 
 steeper the ground the better is the quality of the grass 
 produced. 
 
 To some it will no doubt occur that since the Clipstone 
 Meadows have been in successful operation for forty years, 
 and the town of Mansfield has not been sewered half that 
 time, their great value is not mainly due to the manure 
 they receive from the refuse of that town. This is not, 
 however, a sound deduction, for the greater part of the 
 
 D 
 
30 
 
 soluble matter wasted in a town must reach the river 
 that drains it. If there are no sewers, it will follow the 
 course of the surplus rainfall, either over tlie surface or 
 through the ground. In this case the river would be 
 spared some of the putrescible organic matter due to 
 sewers, but the bulk of the nitrogen would find its way 
 to the river as nitrates and nitrites — forms very suitable 
 to vegetation. 
 
 At Ormskirk, in Lancashire, a town with 6,000 inhabi- 
 tants, and a considerable number of water-closets, the 
 local board, after four years' experience of sewage farm- 
 ing, succeeded, about four years ago, in letting their farm 
 to a working farmer at a rent, it is said, of £100 a year 
 more than they give for it under a ninety-nine years' 
 lease. The farm consists of 68 acres of black peaty soil, 
 overlying the clay, which the occupier considers comes a 
 great deal too near the surface. Only 40 acres, all of 
 which are arable, are at a suitable altitude for irrigation ; 
 and in summer-time, when the land is pretty well 
 covered, difficulty is found in providing a place for the 
 reception of sewage. Eye-grass, potatoes, and market- 
 garden stuff are grown, rhubarb being noticeable as a 
 crop that evidently does well. The solid matter is 
 settled in tanks at the upper edge of the farm, and 
 mixed with town ashes, for use on land. The surface of 
 the ground has been scarcely altered. The sewage, on 
 leaving the tanks, is carried along either of the two sides 
 of the farm by means of a pipe channel raised on a bank 
 of earth, and from these it is distributed over the land by 
 means of simple grips cut temporarily in the ground. 
 The rye-grass is cut for hay twice in the season, and for 
 sale or home use as required. 
 
 At Penrith, the sewage of some 7,000 people was dis- 
 charged into the Eiver Eamont. Till some ten years ao-o 
 
31 
 
 the outfall was objected to, as a nuisance, by the owner of 
 the property in whicli it was situated, who occupied a 
 mansion within a few hundred yards of it. Law proceed- 
 ings were talked about, but were averted by the com- 
 plainant having conceded to him the right to use the 
 sewage for his own purposes and profit. The co-operation 
 was secured of Mr. MoDougall, who had already used 
 the Carlisle sewage for some years. This gentleman took 
 some 70 or 80 acres of gravelly grass land close to the 
 river, on a lease, with the rights in the sewage which had 
 been granted away by the local board. On to this land, 
 at his own expense, he diverted the whole sewage, by 
 means of a sewer nearly half a mile long ; and, as lately 
 as last month, the sewage was seen running thick and 
 thin on to the grass, amid a herd of 120 beasts. There is 
 a very pretty arrangement here for adding some dis- 
 infecting mixture (patented by Mr. McDodgall) to the 
 sewage ; but this is only used during very hot weather, 
 and then not continuously. The ground is very uneven, 
 and the sewage is conveyed by means of earthenware 
 channel-pipes, laid permanently along the higher parts of 
 the field ; from these it is distributed by portable spouting 
 of wood and iron. No advantage is apparent in these 
 carriers corresponding to the trouble and expense they 
 involve. The unevenness of the ground, however, has 
 not interfered with the purification of the sewage, which 
 was reported by the Elvers Pollution Commissioners to 
 have been satisfactory. 
 
 At Plympton St. Mary, near Plymouth, the sewage of 
 over 3,000 people is given to Lord Moelet, who for the 
 last five years has distributed it over some 100 acres of 
 porous sandy meadow land. Lord Moeley employs a 
 man whose duty it is to attend to the irrigation ; but the 
 land is in the occupation of eight different tenants, who, 
 
 D 2 
 
32 
 
 to use the words of the irrigator, are " crazy after the 
 sewage," excepting during some two or three months in 
 the summer, and then the sewage is run straight into the 
 tideway without any cleansing beyond what is effected by 
 settlement in some tanks through which it passes all the 
 year round, and which are emptied of deposit once a year. 
 His lordship does not allow a iSeld to be irrigated that 
 has cattle in it, as his agent is of opinion that this would 
 lead to the land being trampled into holes. It appears 
 probable tliat the sewage would otherwise be used more in 
 the summer months than it has been. 
 
 The schools and the church are within 100 yards, and 
 a number of villas within 200 yards, of the outfall. 
 
 The surface works are mere contour grips cut in the 
 ground, and these, together with under drainage and outfall 
 sewer, appear, from the well-known Rochdale Returns, to 
 have cost Lord Moeley £1,000. 
 
 Mr. ISTewbuey, his lordship's agent, says the under- 
 taking has been most successful, the land being improved 
 twofold by the sewage. 
 
 Rugby has contributed, probably, more to the national 
 stock of sewage utilization facts than any other place except 
 Edinburgh, for as early as 1865 the Highland and Agri- 
 cultural Society of Scotland awarded a premium of thirty 
 sovereigns to J. A. Campbell, Esq., for a report of his on 
 " The Application of Sewage," which was based upon his 
 own experience, during eleven years, of the use of a portion 
 of the sewage of the town of Rugby. Daring those eleven 
 years, Mr. Campbell irrigated about 190 acres of land, laid 
 out with 3-inch iron pipes, through which the sewage was 
 pumped by a 12 H.-P. steam engine. 
 
 The early experience at Rugby led Mr. Campbell to 
 report as follows : — 
 
 " Although I fully appreciate the value of sewage for 
 
33 
 
 certain descriptions of crop, and under certain conditions, 
 I do not think I should be justified in recommending it for 
 general adaptation to the usual routine of the farm. It seems 
 pretty evident to me that the expense and trouble of apply- 
 ing it by means of pipes to arable ground would not be 
 compensated by the increase of the crop ; nor could it be 
 applied with regularity on account of the variable nature 
 of the climate. To the dairy farmer, for the purpose of 
 obtaining heavy crops of green forage, it will be always 
 useful, and by its application to grass lands it may be made 
 of essential benefit to the community." 
 
 This is merely quoted to show that the author of it, 
 who will be again referred to, is not an enthusiast upon the 
 subject, but a gentleman likely to consider the question 
 from a practical point of view. 
 
 Eugby has a population of about 9,000, and water- 
 closets are adopted throughout the town. Eight years ago 
 the local board leased a farm of 65 acres for thirty years 
 at a rent of £265, the board paying tithes. On to this the 
 sewage runs without pumping. 
 
 Until 1874, the farm was worked by the local board, 
 who lost money by it. Since then, however, it has been 
 let under a yearly agreement, for £350 a year, to Mr* 
 Campbell, who had previously rented the same land for 
 ordinary cultivation at £3 an acre. The board employs a 
 man, at a pound a week, whose duty it is to properly dis- 
 tribute the sewage. The distribution is no longer eff'ected 
 by means of expensive iron pipes, as it has been, but with 
 open channels cut in the ground. The soil is a gravelly 
 loam overlying the blue lias clay. Mr. Campbell kindly 
 reports for the purposes of this Paper, as follows :— " Italian 
 rye-grass answers best ; but I have good crops of wheat, 
 oats, mangold-wurzel, and turnips. The grain crops give 
 a large amount of straw, which is now very valuable. 
 
34 
 
 and consequently they sell well by auction as the straw 
 goes off." 
 
 The rye-grass here is cut five times a year, and sold 
 at from 10s. to 20s. a ton. The coarser particles of solid 
 matter are arrested in screening-tanks before the sewage 
 is allowed to flow on to the land. Where new sewers are 
 constructed in the town, provision is made for the exclu- 
 sion of surface-water ; and this Mr. Campbell's experience 
 has made him consider desirable. 
 
 For the utilization of the sewage of another portion of 
 the Eugby district, about thirteen acres of arable land 
 have been hired from the rector at a yearly rental of £54, 
 and sublet at £79 a year, at which rent it continues to be 
 held. 
 
 Euthin, in North Wales, was drained some seven or 
 eight years ago by Mr. Martin, C.E., of Exeter, and the 
 sewage of about 3,000 people was conveyed by two outfall 
 sewers on to meadows immediately adjoining the town. 
 These meadows (112 acres in all) were taken on a twenty- 
 five years' lease by Mr. Martin, who, together with his 
 landlord, has leased the sewage from the town council for 
 the same period at a rent of £20 a year. 
 
 Two-thirds of the town are provided with water-closets, 
 and a considerable amount of spring water finds its way 
 with the sewage on to the land. No solid matters are ex- 
 tracted. A man, a lad, and a donkey are employed to 
 direct the sewage and attend to the garden and the 
 carriers. These are merely contour grips cut in the 
 ground. Ouly about £250 was spent in the preparation 
 of the surface, which is by no means even ; but the land, 
 a Jarge part of which had originally been a morass, was 
 already drained and fit for profitable agricultural occu- 
 pation. 
 
 The whole of the land is let annually by tender in 
 
35 
 
 eight or ten lots, the persons taking them being at liberty 
 to cut and use the grass as they please from the middle of 
 April to tbe end of November. 
 
 In 1875, the 112 acres produced £521 5s. ; in 1876, 
 £514 lis. 5d. ; and in 1877, £557 18s. In 1875, 4^ acres 
 of young grass were cut for the first time and were sold 
 for £40 ; otherwise the increase of price would have been 
 constant. 
 
 Since the end of last November, £50 has been taken 
 for sheep feed. A quantity of the hay grown oa these 
 meadows last year was sold at £6 a ton. 
 
 Every year there are meadows which, not being mown, 
 are available for sewage irrigation during the hay season ; 
 but an acre of garden ground is provided which receives 
 the sewage when, for any temporary reason, it is not 
 wanted on the grass. The garden stuff has produced 
 upwards of £15 in the season. The soil varies from loam 
 to clay and peat, all of which, except a small portion of 
 the clay, rest on alluvial gravel. The London and North 
 Western Railway Company's platform has only the width 
 of their road between it and the principal outfall, and the 
 centre of the town is not more than 300 or 400 yards from 
 the meadows. 
 
 At Euthin, Mr. Maetin appears to have already 
 brought into satisfactory operation a nearer approach 
 than can elsewhere be found to the arrangement that the 
 whole of these notes point to as the proper solution of the 
 difficulty in a large class of cases. 
 
 The sewage of South Molton, in Devonshire, a 
 thoroughly water-closeted borough with 3,000 inhabitants, 
 is carried out of the town by means of three outfalls, and 
 has for a number of years been let at rents varying from 
 £6 to £10 per aunum for use on old pasture land, about 
 
36 
 
 thirty acres of which have been irrigated by means of 
 contour grips cut in the ground. Two of the outfalls were 
 provided with tanks for the interception of solid ma.tter. 
 These, in one case being very near the town, have been 
 objected to as a nuisance, and the council have purchased 
 sixty-eight acres of land about a mile off which will be 
 prepared for irrigation and Jet with immediate possession. 
 It appears from this that the corporation, having had con- 
 siderable experience, are of opinion that farmers are able 
 to deal with sewage satisfactorily from a sanitary as well 
 as from an agricultural point of view. 
 
 At Swinton, a suburb of Manchester, having scarcely 
 any water-closets, provision was made some seven years 
 ago for the upward and downward filtration of the sewage 
 of some 10,U00 inhabitants. Some of the heavier par- 
 ticles may still be arrested in tanks, but the sewaL'e now 
 passes from them in a very dirty, black condition on to a 
 16-acre meadow of very stiff land, which evidently does 
 very nearly all the purification that the sewage is sub- 
 jected to. The meadow is divided, as meadows in stifi" 
 soils commonly are, into " lands," and for the purposes of 
 the sewage a small grip has been dug out of the crest of 
 each land. In the part of the field which was laid out 
 first, these grips were lined with earthenware channel- 
 pipes ; but this process has not been continued in the part 
 prepared more recently, the simple grip being found 
 sufficient. 
 
 This meadow was first let by tender at £38 a year. It 
 is now let for £72, or £4 10s. an acre, the tenant attend- 
 ing to the sewage, which produces for him three cuttings 
 a year. Grazing is forbidden by the local board, lest the 
 carriers should be injured. Storm water is kept out of 
 the drains as far as practicable. The outfall sewer has 
 
37 
 
 also been tapped for the convenience of a farmer, who 
 pays the local board £5 a year and uses the sewage when 
 he pleases. 
 
 At Tavistock, with a population of about 7,000, two- 
 tliirds of which are supplied with water-closets, the sewage 
 has, for the last six years, been let at £50 per annum, 
 under a yearly agreement, to the Duke of BuDrOED. It 
 is used upon some 90 acres of meadow land in the occu- 
 pation of two tenants, who undertake to utilize the 
 sewage without annoyance to the neighbourhood or the 
 river authority. 
 
 Tavistock has a very abundant water supply from the 
 neighbouring hills, and the sewers collect a large quantity 
 of subsoil water in addition, the result being that there Is 
 liquid enough to cover the ground three or four times 
 each year. The meadows are let at about £5 an acre. 
 The outfall is within a liundred yards of upwards of a 
 hundred cottages, the inhabitants of which are reported to 
 be in a satisfactory condition of health. The sewage 
 used to pass throiigh a tank, where the solid matter was, 
 to some extent, arrested; but the process of emptying 
 was so offensive that the tank was abandoned, and, in 
 deference to the views of neighbours, the field in which 
 it stood has not since been irrigated. This circumstance 
 affords an important note upon the commercial side of 
 the question, as well as from the sanitary point of view, 
 for the tenant, Mr. Battams, who rents some 600 acres of 
 grass land from the Duke, says that, owing to his ceasing 
 to irrigate those ten acres, he has to give up fatting five 
 beasts, which means a loss to him of about £25 a year. 
 The soil is of a mixed character, being stiff over a con- 
 siderable area, but the whole overlies an open gravel. 
 The surface has been but very little altered, the carriers 
 
38 
 
 being spade-made in contour lines. The greater part has 
 been deeply drained with rough stone drains. 
 
 At Tyldesley, near Manchester, the sewage of 5,000 
 inhabitants, with scarcely any water-closets, is delivered, 
 under an agreement terminable by either side at six 
 months' notice, on to a farm almost a quarter of a mile 
 from the town. The occupier, who has been in the same 
 farm (a large one) for the last 40 years, has used the 
 sewage during the last seven on 40 or 50 acres of meadow 
 land, which have been irrigated with brook water from 
 time immemorial. 
 
 He is well acquainted with the subject of irrigation, 
 and fully recognizes the value of sewage as manure, but 
 considers that without the help of the brook it would be 
 of little practical use, as the flow would be too small to 
 cover any considerable area. He does not like to graze 
 and irrigate land with sewage at the same time, lest his 
 fields should be infected with disease from cattle slaugh- 
 tered in the town, but he sees the importance from an 
 economical point of view, of eating down the food as 
 rapidly almost as it is produced. By doing this the fine 
 quality of the herbage is maintained. Complaints have been 
 made by the landlord of the farm (who is also interested 
 in the lower part of the river), that river pollution has not 
 been prevented by the measures at present adopted ; and 
 it has appeared probable that he would make the local 
 authority comply with the Eivers Pollution Act inde- 
 pendently of his co-operation. It has not, however, been 
 established that the fouling of the river was due to any 
 circumstance within the control of the farmer ; and it is 
 understood to be probable that, at the tenant's desire, the 
 arrangement may continue as hitherto. No preparation 
 has been made for the sewage, beyond what existed when 
 
39 
 
 the meadows were irrigated by the brook, excepting 
 some wooden troughs which carry the sewage across the 
 river, and which, from the marks of OTorflows on their 
 sides, appear not to be large enough for their purpose. 
 No provision has been made in this town for the ex- 
 clusion of surface water from the sewers. 
 
 Waltham Abbey, with a population of 5,000, affords a 
 remarkable instance of parochial unanimity upon the 
 question of whether sewage is desirable or not to occu- 
 piers of land. Here the whole personal refuse is collected 
 by means of very sound modern sewers at a point in 
 the Town Mead only just outside the town itself, where 
 there are tanks and a steam pumping-engine. The tanks 
 were constructed some seven years ago, with a view to 
 the sewage being relieved of its suspended matters by 
 precipitation with lime or some other chemical ; but for 
 the last four years they have only been used as storage 
 reservoirs to hold the sewage on Sundays, or during parts 
 of week-days when it is not found desirable to keep the 
 pump at work. The surface and subsoil water of the 
 town is kept out of the sewers as far as practicable, and 
 the reservoir is found sufSeient to make pumping un- 
 necessary more than half the day. 
 
 For the last four years the solids have been roughly 
 strained and settled from the sewage, and it has been 
 pumped on to the surface of the ground for irrigating 
 the Town Mead and some market-garden land adjoining. 
 The mead is what is known as " Lammas land," on which 
 every householder in the parish may graze as many 
 horses, beasts, or sheep as he pleases between the 12th of 
 August in one year and the 6th of April in the next. 
 On the 6th of April it is shut up for hay, to be cut by the 
 tenants, of whom there are about a dozen, each having a 
 certain plot marked out by little low stumps permanently 
 
40 
 
 Kept in the ground. Only one cutting is allowed, and 
 the consequence is that when the cattle are turned on in 
 August the grass is pretty nearly knee high. 
 
 Notwithstanding the complicated character of the 
 ownership in the Town Mead, the whole sewage is 
 pumped on to it (without injury, it may be presumed, to 
 any one interested) from the middle of September till the 
 beginning of May, when it is diverted on to the market 
 garden. 
 
 The various owners of the mead take care that their 
 own plots receive a fair share of the sewage, and the 
 catlle, which have the free run of the whole, appear to be 
 very fond of the sewage-grown grass, for it is said that 
 they may be seen nibbling it before the sewage has 
 disappeared from the ground on which it grows. The 
 market gardener says he finds it very useful with man- 
 gold-wurzel, brocoli, savoys, cabbage, and celery. 
 
 He has only used the sewage during the last two 
 years, before which diiHculty was found in disposing of it 
 in June and July, while the mead had long grass or hay 
 upon it. 
 
 Tlie soil is light but peaty. No expense has been 
 incurred in preparing the mead, beyond what was required 
 to cut a grip along the higher edge. So much of the 
 central part as cannot be irrigated from this is reached by 
 means of portable wooden spouting. There are several 
 houses within three or four hundred yards of the sewage 
 ground, one being the residence of a magistrate, whose 
 garden runs down to the mead. This gentleman had 
 his attention called to the sewage, about two years ago, 
 by an intolerable smell arising out of some neglect in 
 the management of the tank ; but since that he says he 
 has experienced nothing to complain of. 
 
 At Ware, in Hertfordshire, the local board, in 1873' 
 
41 
 
 took a farm of 114 acres, with a good house and buildings, 
 on a twenty-eight years' lease, at a rent of £460. This is 
 considered to be about 30s. an acre more than could have 
 been expected from a tenant-farmer. The board, how- 
 ever, since the sewage has been applied, has succeeded in 
 subletting the Bye Farm, on a seven, fourteen, or twenty- 
 one years' lease, at an enhanced rent of £483. The farm 
 is situated in the parish of Stanstead, close to the cele- 
 brated Eye House, whose summer-house, known as the 
 " Eetainers' Hall," is only separated from irrigated rye- 
 grass land by the boarding of which it is constructed. 
 The farm-house itself stands almost in the centre of the 
 sewage land, and the tenant, who also farms another large 
 farm in the neighbourhood, only spends part of tlie year 
 at the sewage farm-house. When asked in March last 
 whether he suffered any annoyance during his stay there, 
 he answered, " Nothing beyond the increased appetite of 
 my family." The Eye Farm appears not to be at such a 
 level as would allow of the Ware sewage flowing on to it 
 by gravity. The whole personal refuse of some 6,000 
 people, together with as little surface water as practicable, 
 was therefore pumped through a rising main into a con- 
 crete reservoir at the summit of the farm, which, having 
 naturally a hogsback tolerably regularly down its centre, 
 is laid out with a wooden carrier along the ridge. The 
 tank was used for settling the solids ; but this process was 
 found offensive when the tank was emptied, and has lately 
 been abandoned, the sewage being poured on to the land 
 as it leaves the sewers. 
 
 The soil is light, with gravel under it, and the sewage 
 has, at present, been distributed over about 80 acres only. 
 The tenant has no fears about sewage-grown mangold not 
 keeping, as has sometimes been alleged, for owing to an 
 
42 
 
 oversight he has had some kept for over two years in a 
 perfectly sound condition. 
 
 Wellington, in Shropshire, a town of about 6,000 
 inhabitants, where water-closets have not yet become 
 general, is sewered into a small watercourse, of which so 
 much as is within the town has been culverted. From 
 this it is diverted on to meadows said to considerably 
 exceed 100 acres in extent, and which cover some four 
 miles of country between the town and the River Tern. 
 The soil is principally light, and several owners enjoy the 
 advantage of the sewage, but none of them have any 
 agreement with the local authority, although an imder- 
 standing exists among themselves, which insures each 
 having his share. The sewage is disposed of at no cost to 
 the rates. Heavy crops of grass are obtained, and those 
 in a position to know consider that Wellington is satis- 
 factorily free of the sewage difficulty. 
 
 Wellington, in Somersetshire, another town of 6,000 
 inhabitants, is also able to dispose of its sewage satis- 
 factorily at no expense to the rates, beyond the original 
 cost of constructing the sewers. 
 
 The sewage of this place has for many years been 
 conveyed by three distinct outfall sewers on to different 
 meadows, for the beneiit of the occupiers. There are no 
 water-closets in the town, but all the privies are connected 
 with the sewers. No money has been spent in altering 
 the surface of the ground. The carriers are simply grips 
 cut with spade and plough. The soil is light ; and the 
 best proof that the sewage is of agricultural value is (in 
 the words of the local board surveyor) " that the occupiers 
 of the land through which it passes are veiy chary over 
 it." No extraction of solid is attempted, excepting in 
 summer-time, when tanks are used, and the sludge is 
 
43 
 
 taken out and dried for use with the drill. No provision 
 is made for excluding surface water from the sewers, but 
 the Surveyor's experience at Wellington has led him to 
 consider that such provision is desirable. 
 
 At Wilsden, in Yorkshire, containing a population 
 of over 3,000, the sewage of rather more than half the 
 town has for the last thirty years been discharged on to 
 meadows for the farmers' own benefit. Some 14 acres of 
 nicely sloping land are irrigated, and this is said to be 
 worth £30 or £40 a year more than it would be without 
 the sewage. No money has been spent in levelling the 
 ground. Where inequalities exist, the sewage is carried 
 across the low ground in wooden spouting, and it is spread 
 by means of grips cut with the plough. 
 
 Middens are in general use, but these are connected 
 with the sewers. The sewage is probably, therefore, con- 
 siderably decomposed before it reaches the land ; and, 
 although no attempt is made to extract any solid matter, 
 these are said to disappear very rapidly. There are houses 
 divided from the sewage field by a high road; only. 
 
 So much of the town as is drained on to this land is 
 said to be satisfactorily rid of its refuse, and at no expense. 
 The Local Government Board is urging the Board of 
 Health to sewer the other and higher part of the town, 
 and the owner of the land already under sewage is willing 
 to receive the sewage of the whole town. He wishes, 
 however, to have an agreement that surface and spring 
 waters shall be kept out of the sewers, and, as the board 
 object to this, nothing has yet been done in the matter. 
 
 At Wrexham, the corporation, in 1870, took a lease 
 of a farm, containing about 84 acres, and became sewage 
 farmers. In 1872, they determined to let the farm with 
 the sewage of their 9,000 constituents, and were fortunate 
 enouch to secure as a tenant Lieut.-Colonel Jones, V.C, 
 
44 
 
 whose name has become well known in connection with 
 the sewage question. 
 
 Colonel Jones has written a very interesting pamphlet, 
 entitled " Will a Sewage Farm Pay?"* which contains 
 every detail as to the management, working, and accounts 
 of this farm ; so these need not be fully gone into here. 
 
 During the first three years of his sewage farming, 
 Colonel Jones got together a dairy of 25 cows, the milk 
 from which he sent twice a day into Wrexham. About 
 three years ago, however, he handed his cows and dairy 
 establishment over to an experienced milkman at a valua- 
 tion, and has since continued to supply fodder for the 
 cattle. 
 
 About 17 acres are generally laid down in rye-grass, 
 which stands three years, and produces about 40 tons 
 annually in seven or eight cuttings. 
 
 The remainder is devoted to wheat, mangold-wurz'el, 
 and potatoes, with the exception of about 5 acres, which 
 are stocked with market-garden stuff. 
 
 The soil is light and the surface has been altered as 
 little as possible, the carriers being made to contour the 
 slopes. These, where practicable, are mere channels cut 
 in the ground ; but where extreme proximity to the stream, 
 which must not be polluted, or steep gradients, render such 
 inadmissible, the earthenware carriers are adopted. Colonel 
 Jones has done all that ran be done by writing to bring 
 about a separation between the sewage and the surface 
 water of Wrexham, and he is well known to have called 
 attention to the advantages of the " separate system " 
 generally. His representations with this view have re- 
 sulted in provision being made for the exclusion of surface 
 water from any extensions in the sewerage system which 
 may be made from time to time. The solid matter, which 
 
 * R. Potter, Publisher, Wrexham. 
 
45 
 
 is arrested in tanks before the sewage is allow^to pass on 
 to the land, used to be carted on to a few acres of land 
 which were at too high a level to be irrigated ; but since 
 the commencement of last year, it has been dried by a 
 process called Kidd's process, and mixed with sulphate of 
 ammonia and bone meal, and sold as "The Farmer's 
 Friend," at £6 10s., with advantage, it is said, to purchaser 
 as well as to the manufacturer. 
 
 From the following balance sheets it will be seen that 
 the last five years' working has produced favourable 
 balances of £186 3s. 3d., £276 4s. G^d., £271 18s. e^d., 
 £392 19s. O^d., and £105 2s. 5d., respectively. The 
 first year alone resulting in a loss which amoimted to 
 £81 18s. 6d. These appear, after £5 an acre is allowed 
 for the 84 acres of corporation land, and £3 an acre for 
 20 acres since added to the farm on account of rent, taxes, 
 &c., besides 5 per cent, on all capital, together with another 
 5 per cent, on such as has been laid out on permanent 
 works, such as levelling, carriers, roads, &c. 
 
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51 
 
 In the villages of the West Eiding of Yorkshire, which 
 contain from 2,000 to 7,000 people each, and no water- 
 closets, the value of sewage appears to be recognized, for, 
 in a day's walk in that part of the country, scores of 
 instances will be seen of the slop-water from a house or a 
 row of houses being carried by a gutter on to a sloping 
 meadow instead of into a ditch. At Idle, CuUingworth, 
 and Harden, near Bradford, this has been done on a some- 
 what systematic and more extended scale, apparently 
 with very satisfactory results. 
 
 From the foregoing notes it appears — 
 
 1st. That there are upwards of lUO owners and occu- 
 piers of land in Great Britain who use sewage for the 
 sake alone of what they can get out of it by agricultural 
 means. 
 
 2nd. That of this number more than 60 are tenant 
 farmers who continue to use it although they have, 
 annually at least, the option of ceasing to do so. 
 
 3rd. That of the latter number about five-sixths, and 
 of the total number about three-fourths, actually pay 
 money for the use of the sewage, either in the form of 
 out-fall rent, unquestionable increase of land rent, or the 
 price of occasional dressings. 
 
 Nearly four thousand acres of sewage land have been 
 referred to, and these are in the hands of more than a 
 hundred distinct occupiers. These occupiers may be 
 divided into three classes : — 
 
 Those who have to cleanse a certain quantity of sewage 
 on a certain area of land ; 
 
 Those who may take, or leave alone, as much of a 
 town's sewage as they please ; and 
 
 Those who may take, or leave alone, what sewage can 
 be spared by others having a prior right. 
 
 The first class occupies 1,670 acres of sewaged land, 
 
52 
 
 and deals with the sewage of twenty distinct sanitary 
 districts, with an aggregate population of about 200,000, 
 on as many as twenty-one different farms. 
 
 Of these twenty-one farms, twelve are let by local 
 authorities to tenants who undertake to cleanse the sewage 
 as well as use it for their own purposes; and nine are 
 held by persons who take the sewage on their land for no 
 other reason than the belief that their holding will be 
 benefited by it. Now, it is a fact deserving the notice of 
 local authorities, as well as of private users of sewage, 
 that while ten out of the twelve authorities having sewage 
 to use, manage to become owners or lessees of arable farms, 
 six out of the nine agriculturists who take sewage with all 
 its liabilities for the sake only of fertilizing their land, 
 happen to occupy permanent grass farms. Now, taking 
 the second class, composed of persons using as much or 
 little sewage as they please. These are sixteen in 
 number, and, with the sewage of about a quarter of a 
 million people at their command, irrigate amongst them 
 nearly 1,500 acres. 
 
 This area, with the exception of part of the Edinburgh 
 land, about an acre of osiers at Tyldesley, and part of the 
 Handsworth land, which bears rhubarb, is entirely occu- 
 pied by permanent grass. The difference between this 
 class of sewage user and the first, consists in this one 
 having the power to pass the dirty water on if it is not 
 wanted, and so neglect to prevent river pollution, and 
 cast the duty on some one else. It is of the highest 
 importance, therefore, to establish what are the periods 
 during which the interests of the unfettered sewage 
 farmer dictate that he shall let any one else have the 
 sewage for better or worse. 
 
 At Crediton, where sewage is only put on grass land, 
 it appears to be passed on during " most of the summer." 
 
53 
 
 At Devizes, it is not used while the hay is tall or 
 being made. 
 
 At Edinburgh, three watermen are employed in 
 summer to irrigate the Craigentinny Meadows, and one 
 in winter. 
 
 At Handsworth it runs on to grass land all the year 
 round. 
 
 At Leek, the outfall, commanding meadows only, dis- 
 charges on to those meadows during the whole year, except 
 about six weeks or two months, when the growth of the 
 grass prevents access to the channels without damage to the 
 crop. 
 
 From Mansfield, the Duke of Poetland's bailiff, Mr. 
 Woods, kindly reports that there is no season of the year 
 at which the water cannot with advantage be turned on to 
 the Clipstone Meadows. 
 
 At Plympton, the occupiers of Lord Moeley's Meadows 
 are " crazy after the sewage," excepting during two or 
 three months in the summer. 
 
 At Waltham Abbey, the town mead is irrigated from 
 the middle of September till the beginning of May, when 
 the occupier of the adjoining mai-ket garden takes the 
 sewage. 
 
 These few notes show that the grass farmer can, with- 
 out any scheming, do with sewage till May. Then comes 
 the very important note from Leamington (where Lord 
 Warwick has produced sewage-grown roots to win ten 
 silver cups and a number of money prizes) that "Boot 
 crops, with the exception of cabbages, never have sewage 
 applied to them before May or June;" and another from 
 Arle Court Farm, Cheltenham (where many prize man- 
 golds have been grown) that Mr. Wood has mangold on 
 the same ground five years running. 
 
 Now, the third class, into which sewage users have 
 
54 
 
 been divided for the purposes of this Paper, includes 
 some sixteen or eighteen farmers at Leamington and 
 Cheltenham, who, together, irrigate about 500 acres of 
 land when the sewage can be spared to them. For this 
 advantage they have been found ready to pay nearly 
 £200 a year, besides doing such work as the land may 
 require before it can be irrigated. What has been done 
 at these two places goes principally to show that a farmer 
 can, under a great variety of circumstances, if he chooses, 
 try a dressing of sewage on his field (whether arable or 
 pasture) without any such outlay as would only be justi- 
 fied after he had determined to irrigate permanently. 
 
 To any one desirous of trying the use of sewage on their 
 land, but unacquainted with the practice, it will be satis- 
 factory to learn that at no place mentioned (with seven 
 exceptions) do the surface carriers, great or small, consist 
 of anything but spade or plough cut channels. At Aberdeen 
 and Guisborough, however, they are made of earthenware 
 channel-pipes ; at Penrith, channel-pipes are used for the 
 permanent carriers, and portable wooden spouting is used 
 lor branch purposes. These both appear troublesome 
 features — the one to keep in repair in a field occupied by 
 cattle ; the other to use, and their merit is by no means 
 apparent. At Altrincham, channel- pipes were laid, but 
 have, in a very large measure, been removed in favour of 
 the simple grip. At Swinton the land first laid out had 
 channel-pipes ; but, in extensions, spade-cut furrows have 
 taken their place. At Wrexham, solid channels are only 
 used where the necessary proximity of their position to 
 that of a pure watercourse makes them desirable ; or 
 where the gradients are so steep that channels simply cut 
 in the ground would not stand. At Ware, the main 
 carrier consists of a wooden spout packed up on legs or 
 laid in the ground at regular gradients, and from this the 
 
55 
 
 sewage is carried on to the land, as at Penrith, by means 
 of smaller portable spouting. 
 
 The amount of alteration required by the surface 
 before land can be satisfactorily irrigated with sewage 
 must of course vary with localities ; but what has been 
 done at Leamington and Warwick by some fifteen users 
 of sewage, both on meadow and arable land, as well as at 
 Chorley, and several of the places where grass land has 
 been irrigated, proves that, under very varying conditions, 
 it is practicable to irrigate land with the same surface that 
 has been given to it by the process of ordinary farming. 
 
 Besides the cost of great levelling operations, the 
 tendency they have to rob parts of the surface of their 
 share of soil, is a decided disadvantage. Few accurately- 
 levelled fields of rye-grass are free from patches of a 
 yellowish colour, which, on investigation, turn out to be 
 due to want of soil. 
 
 From what has been said about tanks, it is plain that 
 they are only useful under certain circumstances, and that 
 they require careful handling to prevent them from being 
 a nuisance. 
 
 Upon the question of whether or no it is dangerous to 
 graze and irrigate land at the same time, much valuable 
 evidence has been adduced on the negative side, whil6 
 none to the contrary has come under the Author's notice. 
 
 That heavy as well as light land may be profitably 
 irrigated has been proved at Cheltenham, Orediton, Chorley, 
 Leamington, and Swinton. It must not, however, be 
 wanting in drainage ; but if land be sufficiently drained, 
 either naturally or artificially, for advantageous farming 
 without sewage, it is sufficiently drained for the most 
 advantageous use of sewage. Heavy land, however, under 
 sewage should be laid down in pasture, for sewage adds 
 considerably to the labour and difficulty in working it. 
 
56 
 
 Climate has, no doubt, considerable influence upon all 
 agricultural phenomena, but no variety to be met with in 
 this kingdom south of Edinburgh seems to be inconsistent 
 with the profitable use of liquid sewage. The meteoro- 
 logical character of the country varies very considerably 
 between Edinburgh and Plympton ; for, while the average 
 annual rainfall at the latter place must be nearly fifty 
 inches, that of Edinburgh is under thirty, and places 
 situated at intermediate latitudes, where sewage has been 
 profitably used, have annual rainfalls varying from the 
 twenty-five inches registered at Chelmsford and Guis- 
 borough, to double that amount at Penrith, Cockermouth, 
 and Cleator Moor. 
 
 The question of whether the separate system of 
 sewerage is desirable or not requires a few words. It 
 concerns, principally, those who are obliged to cleanse all 
 the sewage that comes to them. There are twenty-one 
 such cases referred to, and the Author is in a position to 
 know that, in fourteen of them, those most interested 
 would gladly see storm waters kept out of the sewers. 
 Thirteen of these gentlemen, including Mr. Blackbuen, 
 Colonel Jones, Admiral Chalonee, and Captain Fos- 
 BBEY, speak from experience of arable farms, and there 
 can be little doubt that they are right ; but with grass 
 land the question is not of such importance. Subsoil 
 water, which makes a less varying addition to the flow of 
 sewage, is probably always an advantage to the sewage 
 farmer, provided only he has enough land for the proper 
 utilization of all the manure contained in, the sewage he 
 has to deal with. 
 
 The sewage of a town has never, probably, been spread 
 over enough land for its complete utilization ; and one 
 thing that must always make this difficult, in the majority 
 of cases, is the absence of available water in sufScient 
 
57 
 
 quantities to spread the sewage where it is required in 
 summer, and to irrigate the already highly-manured land, 
 which requires moisture rather than manure. It is plain, 
 from the tahle referring to the Leamington farm, that, the 
 field which received nearly fifteen thousand tons of sewage 
 per acre, between the 8th of February and the end of 
 August last year, a very large proportion of the manure 
 must have been wasted, for, supposing the average 
 manurial value of the refuse of the Leamington popula- 
 tion to be 10s. per head per annum, then the value of the 
 dressing per acre would be about £107, which is, probably, 
 at least four times the value of the crop that it could 
 produce. 
 
 " Sewage sickness " is a term that has become common, 
 because it sounds appropriate ; but, as a matter of fact, 
 time has no effect in making land " sewage sick," for its 
 pores may be filled, as at Edinburgh, year after year, 
 with infinitely more dissolved manure than can possibly 
 be made use of by vegetation ; and the land will continue 
 to be as productive and as capable of receiving sewage as 
 ever. A crop may, however, be ruined if it is covered 
 with sewage, even although it may not have had enough 
 for its manurial requirements ; or land may be done more 
 harm to than good, temporarily, by one single 'ill-timed 
 dressing. Experience has proved that over-feeding with 
 sewage for years has no ill effect, although land may be 
 choked with it in one meal. 
 
 At none of the places mentioned, excepting one, has 
 the use of sewage involved the user in litigation. The 
 Ware Local Board were, however, a few years ago, sum- 
 moned before the magistrates by the Lee Conservancy, 
 who alleged that sewage was allowed to run over the 
 surface of the ground into the river, but the case was 
 dismissed. 
 
58 
 
 The object of this Paper has been to lead to an 
 inereeise in the present number of sewage farmers. If 
 this is to come about largely, sewers must be laid out 
 with a view to commanding by their outfalls (or by out- 
 falls that might be made if required) the greatest area of 
 land, and the greatest number of agricultural properties 
 or holdings. Would-be sewage farmers must bear in 
 mind that there is a large variety of circumstances under 
 which it would be possible, and very advantageous to a 
 town, to send part of its sewage to a farm, although that 
 farm may be at level considerably above the general out- 
 fall level of its whole system of sewers. 
 
 Advocates of sewage precipitation processes should 
 not regard sewage farmers as their rivals ; for a chemical 
 process might be very largely used with advantage where 
 farmers are being persuaded or taught to use sewage. 
 But this should be the distinct aim of all authorities; 
 for there is no chemical process that could not be worked 
 to greater advantage during two months of the year than 
 twelve, or applied to a small quantity of sewage at less 
 cost than to a large. 
 
 In conclusion, thanks are due to the many gentlemen 
 in nearly every district who have given valuable assistance 
 towards the preparation of the statistics of this Paper. 
 
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