AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 139 



I have a strong conviction that a very much larger quantity of sewage, say one thousand tons 

 per acre, at least, may be profitably applied to our sandy, gravelly, and chalky wastes. This 

 would afford a great economy in distance and expense. On the Edinburgh meadows as much 

 as six thousand tons per Scotch acre are applied ; but that appears to me hardly a necessary 

 quantity. Still, if such large quantities could be applied to so limited an area, it is clear that, 

 instead of one penny per ton, the cost need not much exceed one farthing. Six thousand 

 tons, at one farthing per ton, would be £6, 5s. per acre. This would pay; for the average 

 letting of the Edinburgh meadows to the cow-keepers was, I am informed, last year, £21 per 

 acre — a pretty good evidence of the beneficial effects of town- sewage on waste lands that 

 were, a few years since, worthless and barren. 



I apprehend that no one will doubt the economy of transmission of fluids by tubes, 

 seeing that by road-carriage the charge of carting near the metropolis would be, at least, 

 eight-pence per ton, per mile. There is no fear of our being overwhelmed with cheap 

 hay or superabundant milk by this process, for our wants become annually more and 

 more gigantic. In conclusion, I do hope that this club of practical agriculturists will, by 

 their resolution this evening, stamp their opinion of the necessity for this great national 

 economy. 



Subterranean Application of Liquid Manure. 



A Mr. Wilkins has patented in England an ingenious plan for applying liquid manure 

 directly to the bottom of the roots of plants, in the subsoil, instead of using it upon the sur- 

 face of the ground in the usual way. There is but one serious objection to it — and that is its 

 expensiveness, which is likely to prevent its general adoption. The liquid manure is con- 

 veyed under the surface-soil and growing crops in tubes, not unlike draining tile, allowing a 

 line of pipes to each row of turnips, corn, potatoes, or other agricultural plants. To avoid 

 the loss of manure by its infiltration into the subsoil and deep earth, the whole area operated 

 upon has the surface-soil removed to the depth of twenty or more inches, and the denuded 

 surface is covered with water-lime, cement, or pounded clay, to render it impervidus to 

 water, when the surface-soil is restored to its former place. In all cases where the subsoil 

 is naturally retentive, it would appear to be a needless expense to pave or cement it to pre- 

 vent the loss of manure, however liberally it may be used ; but, on all pervious land, some- 

 thing should be done to avoid the washing away of the liquid food of agricultural plants, 

 where one manures highly. 



Mr. Wilkins has pipes leading from liquid manure tanks that convey the fertilizer to the 

 underground conduits, through which it is brought into contact with the rootlets of every 

 plant under cultivation. The manure rises up to the surface of the tilled soil by capillary 

 attraction. Care, of course, is taken not to have the liquid so strong as to injure any crop, 

 and not to give the soil, which in truth lies in a tight basin, too much water for the healthy 

 growth of plants. Mr. W. selected last season a piece of ground one hundred feet square, 

 which he had prepared on his principle, and by the side of it he had one hundred feet square 

 of the same kind of soil, which was treated on the old system. Both pieces were planted 

 and sown alike, and he had advertised the day when the roots on both would be taken up, 

 and invited the public to come and see and judge for themselves. The results were, as re- 

 ported in the London Agricultural Gazette, that on the prepared land the mangel-wurtzel 

 grown was at the rate of sixty-nine tons two quarters and twenty-two pounds to the acre ; 

 the Indian corn grown on it ripened and came to perfection, but not on the unprepared piece ; 

 the potatoes were taken up in eleven weeks, and when weighed were found to be more than 

 double the weight of those grown on the unprepared land ; and one of the cabbages weighed 

 sixteen pounds, although its stem remained in the ground, and had at the time of the ex- 

 amination fifteen young cabbages upon it. Mr. Wilkins exhibited some lucerne, which he 

 said was the third cut, and contrasted it with the first of some grown on the old system. 

 Remarkably fine specimens of flax and hemp were exhibited, grown by this new process. 

 Only four inches of liquid was allowed to stand at any time at the bottom ; and the soil above 

 must be from twelve to eighteen inches. 



