182 APPLICATION OF TOWN SEWAGE IN AGPJCULTURE. 



The value of a crop is not always to be measured by the bulk 

 of it, and success in farming, beyond all the other professions, is 

 often gained by doing things at the nick of time. So, when the 

 east wind blows far into the month of May, and the turnip crop is 

 eaten up, and the face of the country is brown and bare, then it is 

 that for green cutting, the sewage meadow comes in worth some- 

 thing far beyond its own value for a dairy stock, and it is 

 scarcely possible to put a price per acre on such a resource to 

 fall back upon. In some years, however, nearly the whole of 

 the crop is allowed to mature for hay, and when grown as hay 

 the crop has never been less than 4 tons per acre. When 

 handled quickly, and secured in good condition, the quality is 

 fiue green sweet Timothy, and is relished by both horses and 

 cattle. If sold off the farm, taking one year with another, the 

 value would be not less than £12 per acre, and some years would 

 run up to £15 to £16 ; and all these sums are inside the value. 



After an experience of six years, I have never observed any 

 injurious effect from using sewage grass upon any animal on the 

 farm. The grass has been cut green from the early spring, and 

 at other times all through the summer, and supplied to the cattle, 

 but in this green state it has rarely been given, and then sparingly, 

 to the horses. It has always, however, been given along with 

 other food, and I should not like to incur the risk of feeding any 

 breeding stock exclusively upon grass grown with sewage, or to 

 permit them to graze npon it ; but w^hen it is allowed to mature, 

 and when made into hay, I have no hesitation in supplying it 

 in any quantity to every animal on the farm, and practically this 

 has been done for the last six years. 



Separated by two fields from my own meadow, but on a con- 

 siderably lower level, is a field of 13 acres on Kirkton estate. 

 It is leased by Mr Pinkerton, butcher, Carluke, and when he 

 entered, it was poor, bare land. It has, however, a fine fall for 

 irrigation, but was otherwise in a rough uneven state. When 

 Carluke drainage district was formed in 1875, it was found that 

 about 10 acres of this field was on a level to receive the sewage 

 from nearly one-third of the town, being a population of 1400 

 to 1500 inhabitants. One half of the field was allowed to lie 

 in the state it then was, the other half was ploughed out of the 

 lea and sown with oats, and along with the oat crop was sown 

 a grass mixture of all the best natural grasses recommended by 

 myself, in addition to 2 bushels of rye-grass. On the removal 

 of the oat crop, the sewage was run upon the whole 10 acres, 

 and the land, which was fully rented at £2 per acre, rapidly 

 increased in value, and is now worth £4 per acre. Considerable 

 expense, equal to about a year's rent of the field, was incurred 

 in erecting a large wooden conduit and cutting a deep drain, and 

 laying with 12-inch glazed pipes, to convey the sewage to the 

 centre of the field, but with this exception, the sewage is con- 



