60 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



squandering of the elements of human blood, for which she is so bit- 

 terly reproached by Liebig. 



But steam-power, which has imposed on the British laborer a 

 struggle for existence, by reason of free trade competition, brings 

 him also the means of issuing victorious from the encounter. Why 

 may not the steam-urged plowshare pass to and fro through the field, 

 as the steam-driven shuttle passes through the fabric in the loom? 



If pure water can be pumped by steam-power at an infinitesimal cost 

 into a town for its supply, why may not the very same water, enriched 

 with the ejecta of the population, and so converted into a powerful 

 manure, be also pumped out of the town by steam-power, and applied 

 to maintain the fertility of the land ? In a word, why may not hus- 

 bandry rise, in its turn, from the rank of a handicraft to that of a 

 manufacture; the farm be organized and worked like a factory ; and 

 food, like every other commodity, be at length produced \iy steam- 

 power ? 



These questions are now in every mouth ; and the agricultural 

 revolution they imply appears to be, at this moment, in course of 

 accomplishment by the English people. 



Already, on many an English farm, the characteristic tall factory- 

 chimney is seen rising among the trees ; the steam-engine is heard 

 panting below ; and the rapid thrashing- wheel, with its noisy revolu- 

 tions, supersedes the laborers tardy flail. Already, at somewhat fewer 

 points, the farm-locomotive stands smoking in the field, winding to 

 and fro, round anchored windlass, the slender rope of steel which 

 draws the rapid plowshare through the soil ; thus furrowed twice as 

 deep, and thrice as fast, as formerly by man and horse ; and thus 

 economically enriched with proportionately increased supplies of at- 

 mospheric plant-food. 



And lastly, already, at still rarer intervals, the subterranean pipes 

 for sewage-irrigation ramify beneath the fields, precisely as the pipes 

 for water distribution ramify beneath the streets of the adjacent town ; 

 the propelling power being, in both cases, that of steam. 



These innovations are, doubtless, still experimental ; and, like all 

 innovations, they are vaunted by some with premature zeal as perfect, 

 while others, with pardonable scepticism, decry them as utterly im- 

 practicable. Truth for the present seems to lie between these extremes. 

 The steam plow, though answering well in large and level fields with 

 favorable soils, still requires adaptation to less easy conditions of 

 tillage. The tubular irrigating system is still liable to the sudden in- 

 flux of storm-waters, overburdening, and often overmastering the 

 steara-pumps so as seriously to interef ere with the economy of the dis- 

 tributive operation. But inventive research and practical experiment 

 are rapidly proceeding side by side, and every year, not to say every 

 month, sees some fresh truth elicited, some previous " impossibility " 

 achieved. 



Utilization of Urban Ejecta as Manure. The separation of surface- 

 water from sewage is, by a certain number, confidently relied on to 

 solve the problem of sewage utilization, in conformity with Mr. F. O. 

 Ward's formula, - " the rain-fall to the river, the sewage to the soil." 

 Others are of opinion that sewage, even when diluted by admixture 

 with rain-swollen brooks, may be economically pumped on the land. 



