MB. JOHN JUST ON FAULTS IN FARMING. 105 



culating atmosphere, must be less prejudicial than the present 

 sjstem of sewering all the streets of a town to the river, 

 and there allowing the putrid feculent mixture, night and 

 day, summer and winter, to run slowly through the heat of 

 a mighty town, like this of Manchester. If covered sewers 

 be necessary in the one instance, why is not a covering to 

 the river in the other ? Is the accumulation of all the evils 

 of a great town, less than that of the individual ones taken 

 separately and singly ? This is something like an absurdity, 

 if it be not one entirely. 



Yet all this might be a splendid boon to the agriculturist. 

 East, west, north, south, in the direction of the thirty- 

 two points of the compass, Manchester pours out her traffic 

 throughout the adjoining country. From as many points 

 of the compass she imports food into her dense and crowded 

 area. As a return for this food might she not send back 

 her superfluities? From tanks, reservoirs, cesspools, &c., 

 might she not irrigate and enrich the very land she is con- 

 stantly exhausting? Cheshire is her garden. Thence she 

 obtains most of her green groceries. Cheshire yields her 

 cheese. The refuse returned from articles consumed would 

 manure half the county ; and other towns of South Lanca- 

 shire might so supply the districts which surround them. 

 It would then be idle to talk of guano from Ichaboe or 

 Peru, as we should have at home a sufficient supply in a 

 moist and fresh state for immediate consumption. 



Manchester can do any thing which ingenuity and enter- 

 prise can compass. And if she will not stir, if she will 

 not raise her giant's strength to this Augean task, the ex- 

 ample erelong will be set her. Individual energy some- 

 where will begin the practice. There is always some one 

 found ready to try a good project. Towns are commonly 

 dependent on the country for produce. In these times 

 of rapid and easy intercourse, let reciprocity prevail, and 

 the country becomes dependent to a certain extent on 



