194 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



4-5 EDWARD VII., A. 1905 

 THE SEPTIC TAA^K FOR THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 



Certainly one of the most hopeful signs of progi-ess, one might almost say of ad- 

 vancement in civilization, at the present time is the widespread desire in the country 

 home for a hotter and more convenient water supply, for a bath-room, and f-or those 

 sanitary conveniences (closet, sink, laundry, &c.), which go so far towards making the 

 difference in comfort between the city and the farm house, especially in the winter. 

 The requests for information regarding these matters, and particularly respecting some 

 simple and effective method for the disposal of the sewage from the farm, house, have 

 been very numerous during the past year. 



As regards the latter question, these inquiries have been answered by an account 

 of the septic tank system, a comparatively^ speaking new system, but one that has 

 proved highly satisfactory, as far as the writer is aware, wherever it has been tried. 

 In many instances this correspondence has further led to requests for details, di- 

 mensions and drawings. It has, therefore, been thought advisable to insert the following 

 detailed account of this system with illustration in the Annual Report, since it^ 

 publication in this way will not only bring the matter prominently before a very large 

 number of farmers, but will place on record in an available form particulars which it 

 is almost impossible to furnish in the limited scope afforded by an ordinary letter. 



We have no hesitation in saying, at the outset, that there is no method of sewage 

 disposal at once so effective, so cheap, and so simple for the farm house, the creamery 

 and the cheese factory, as that which is known as the Septic Tank System. For its 

 working, a water supply in the house or building is necessary, but there is no good 

 reason now-a-days why snch should not be obtainable on the majority of farms. There 

 are many means of bringing water from a safe, and perhaps fairly distant source, 

 into the house and barns, and one or other of these, as circumstances dictate, should 

 be employed. Apart from the question of sewage disposal, apart from the convenience 

 and the saving of labour that would follow, such a water supply must now be con- 

 sidered from the health standpoint most desirable, if not a necessity. Reference to 

 results given annually in these reports show tliat the shallow well, sunlc in the barnyard 

 or about the farm buildings ought to be abandoned. Such wells art always a menace 

 to the health of the farmer and his family, and his stock. With a water supply in the 

 house — even though that may consist merely of a tank in one of the upper rooms 

 periodically filled by a force pump, and from which pipes lead to the bath room 

 and kitchen — there is nothing to prevent the installation of this system, which, as one 

 writer of authority puts it, is at once ' inexpensive, absolutely automatic, scientific, 

 simple, and in every way thoroughly efficient and satisfactory.' 



Very briefly, the system may be outlined as follows : — The sewage or waste from 

 the closet and sink is conducted by the soil pipe, 4 inches in diameter, intJo 

 a tank, situated outside the building, in which, without the addition of any 

 chemical or disinfectant, but simply by the action of certain self-sown microbes 

 or bacteria (which accomplish their useful work of destruction largely in the' 

 absence of light and air), its organic matter — its filth — is decomposed and rendered 

 harmless, and moreover its disease germs, if any are present, destroyed. The effluent or 

 what might be termed purified sewage is now discharged automatically and intermit- 

 tently from the tank, either into a filter box containing gravel or sand, or coke, or, better 

 still, into a system of subsurface or distributing field tiles of unglazed ware which allow 

 the effluent to soak into the soil throughout their whole length. The distance from the 

 house to the tanl?: is not a matter of any moment. The tank must be water-tight, and 

 may be constructed of brick or stone cemented or, preferably, of concrete. When this 

 system was fii^t put into use it was supposed that light and air prevented the develop- 

 ment of the filth de.stroying bacteria and, therefore, that it was essential for the tank to 

 be practically light tight and air tight. Further, it was held that the inlet and outlet 

 should be so arranged that the sewage would not be disturbed by currents. According 

 to certain authorities it is still believed that the bacteria can only do their best work 

 under these conditions. More recent investigations, however, go to show that such 



