Agricultural ©jpmwtnj attii tolagg. 



On the Utilization of Sewerage Products for Agricultural Purposes. 



R. MECHI, the -well-known English agriculturist, at a late 

 meeting of the London Farmer's Club, delivered the following 

 lecture on the utilization of sewerage products, especially 

 those of London, for agricultural purposes : — 



One hundred years hence, which is not long in the history 

 of a country, our successors will scarcely believe that a nation, 

 wanting annually many millions of quarters of grain to fill 

 up its own inadequate production of food, should waste the 

 only means by which such deficiency might be made good. • I 

 mean the productions of the land when they have fulfilled 

 their office of nutrition to man and beast. Every one now at 

 all conversant with the theory of modern agricultural che- 

 mistry must know that our agricultural produce loses little by such a process, and that the 

 bulk of its elements are returned to us in the shape of excretas, if we take the trouble to col- 

 lect them. I am aware that the practicability of doing so has been questioned ; but I pur- 

 pose this evening to show that there is no difficulty in the matter, except what exists in the 

 brain of man. The same power that brings your water into London will take it out again ; 

 for, according to Professor Way and other chemists, 2,500,000 inhabitants will only add 

 three thousand seven hundred and sixty tons in solids and fluids to the quantity of water. 



If agriculturists studied attentively Professor Way's able paper on Town-sewage, (see Royal 

 Agricultural Society's Journal, vol. xv. part 1, p. 135,) it would teach them a great and pro- 

 fitable lesson. They would learn that of all the manure made by human beings (and I have 

 no doubt by animals) twelve parts out of thirteen in weight escape as urine, only one-thir- 

 teenth part being solid ! Well may farmers love the sheep-fold, and well may they deplore 

 yard-feeding, where the rains from the untroughed roofs may, in too many instances, thus 

 take away nearly all their manure. Mr. Way has found that, taking the average of men, 

 women, and children, each individual of the population will, in the course of twenty-four hours, 

 contribute to the sewage of a town one-quarter of a pound of solid and three pounds of liquid 

 excrement. A knowledge of these facts shows us how trivial is the question of solid manure ; 

 for, at a quarter of a pound each, daily, the total solid manure of 2,500,000 people will only weigh 

 two hundred and seventy-nine tons. According to Mr. Way, the excrement of each person is di- 

 luted with or distributed through twenty gallons, or fourteen hundred times its own weight, of 

 water. It must appear singular to a disinterested observer that, while farmers seek eagerly after 

 every new manure, and are subjected to much imposition in such purchases, they appear to be 

 apathetic on the question of town-sewage. Omitting the sanitary consideration, there can be no 

 class so deeply interested in the question of town-sewage as the farmer. Those sewers carry 

 away to our rivers all the products which he has at so much care and cost produced for the food 

 of the people. To repair the exhaustions caused by these supplies, he rushes to Peru for birds' 

 dung, at an expense of some millions, while the very graveyards of foreign nations are taxed 

 to supply bones for his turnips. The rapid increase of water-closets and new sewers, with a 

 more abundant water supply, are daily lessening the supply of human excretse in a solid 

 form, diminishing, in fact, pro tanto, the ordinary channel of supply, so that shortly we may 

 expect that only the stable-manure and ashes of London will be available for agricultural 



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