SEWAGE AND SEWAGE RIVERS. l63 



hose ; but being compelled to carry the refuse in boats he 

 was obliged to desist. At the same time it became clear that 

 a very short time of such a top dressing as he used was not 

 enough to produce the remarkable results detailed at Edin- 

 burgh. Although very strong manure is not needed, very 

 dilute is of littla advantage, requiring too much labour and 

 too much water. Mr. Holland added manure to the water 

 which he used, as he could not get it direct from any strong 

 sewer. The sewer water of towns so well supplied with 

 water as Manchester and London cannot be of such value as 

 to allow expensive carriage ; whereas there are times of great 

 rains when it is only to a slight degree rendered impure. 



Let us suppose that all the water flowing down a 

 Manchester sewer were to be put upon the ground. Let 

 us say there are twenty million gallons from the water- 

 works, add to this occasionally the rainfall from drainage, 

 over, let us suppose, twenty miles of surface. The land 

 here has quite enough to do with its own rainfall, not 

 knowing how to pass it with suflScient rapidity through 

 the ground, but how are we to convey to it the rainfall of 

 other twenty miles. Let us suppose we have twenty square 

 miles to let it fall upon, there is double the rainfall for it, 

 how damp must that land then be in a county already too 

 damp. But even twenty miles is an enormous extent to cover 

 and not easily obtained, or if obtained not easily managed. 

 If, however, it will be too much to put double the rainfall on, 

 then more than twenty miles must be used, rendering the 

 work still greater and more difficult and expensive. 



But this is the mere rainfall during floods filling the sewers 

 too full. What, then, is to become of the twenty million 

 gallons every day of the year besides ? To put them upon 

 any land would be, of course, to injure the climate of the 

 district to a great extent, unless the breadth of land were 

 enormous ; and to put this water on as irrigation for meadows 

 involves a difficulty inherent in the formation of the land 



