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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



gravity over his farm, he would accept it ; but that 

 if it was to be first mixed with large quan- 

 tities of water collected in tanks, and then to be 

 pumped up, it would be valueless. In fact he lost a 

 considerable sum by the sewage of Rugby every year." 

 In plain truth, then, in this matter, once more, the 

 farmers are not blind to their own interest. Had they 

 only done what Bavon Liebig and Alderman Mechi 

 ordered, they would, like Mr. Congreve, have been 

 " losing money every year." Any application of the 

 sewage of towns does not, in the first instance, rest 

 with them. It might be of some use if conveniently 



conveyed, at little or no expense. Corporate bodies, 

 who fancy they are going to take their thousands per 

 annum of the farmers in this way, cannot too soon 

 disabuse their minds of such a notion. Promoters of 

 schemes and associations for the use of sewage must 

 not look to the farmers for shareholders. Sewage and 

 sewerage, as an argument, occupy two very impor- 

 tant divisions — the matter itself, and the mode of 

 its application. It is with the latter that our cities and 

 tawns have still to deal. The farmer can do little more 

 than bide his time at present. The difficulty is not 

 with him. 



LONDON, OR CENTRAL FARMERS' CLUB. 



THE SEWAGE OF TOWNS. 



The first monthly meeting of the Club during the 

 present year was held on Monday evening, Feb. 6, at 

 the club-house, Blackfriars, Mr. L. A. Coussmaker, of 

 Westwood, Farnham, the new president, in the chair. 

 He was supported by a very large attendance of mem- 

 bers and others interested in the question announced 

 for consideiation, including Mr. Alderman Mechi, Mr. 

 John Thomas (Bletsoe), Mr. J. Tyler, Mr. James 

 Howard, Mr. J. A. Williams, Mr. Bailey Denton, Mr. 

 J. Bradshaw, Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, Mr. C.J. Brick- 

 well, Mr. S. Sidney, Mr. J. A. Nockolds, Mr. R. 

 Marsh, Mr. Bullock Webster, Mr. N. Leader, Mr. 

 T. Congreve, Mr. J. G. King, Mr. W. Cheffins, Mr. 

 James Wood, Mr. Cousins, Mr. Wood (Croydon), 

 Mr. J. Cressingham, Mr. Fidler, Mr. Murrell, Mr. 

 T. Owen, Mr. J. Odams, Mr. R. Bond, Mr. Shearer, 

 Mr. Halkett, Mr. Goldhawk, Mr. J. Parkinson, Mr. 

 James Thomas, Mr, W. Pedder, Dr. Ellis, Mr. W. 

 Eve (Kent), Mr. Eve (Broad-street), Mr. Christie, 

 Mr. G. P. Tuxford, Mr. Coleman (Beds), Mr. R. Pal- 

 grave, Mr. Lutley, Mr.R.P, Browne (Greenwich), Mr. 

 Keep, Mr. J. Medworth, Mr. Coleman (London), Mr. 

 Edmonds, Mr. Trevethick, Mr. Hooker, Sec, &c. 



The subject for discussion assigned for its introduc- 

 tion to Mr. Alderman JVfechi, was " The Sewage of 

 Towns, as it affects British Agriculture." 



After a few introductory remarks from the Chairman, 

 Mr. Alderman Mechi said : 



The question, " How to Manure our Lands abund- 

 antly and cheaply," is well deserving consideration in a 

 country like ours, where nine-tenths of a rapidly in- 

 creasing population are non-producers in agriculture, 

 and where the great competition for land, and its conse • 

 quently increasing rental, necessitate a much higher rate 

 of production. I am quite aware that, by many, I am 

 looked upon as a public bore, always agitating about 

 sewage and those nasty excrements ; but such people 

 cannot be aware that the production of their daily bread 

 depends upon the economizing of those very excrements, 

 by their application to the soil. Anything that I can 

 urge in this matter can add little to the force and truth 

 with which Baron Liebig has recently invested this 

 important question. I shall show, by a statistical re- 

 view of our past and present sewerage, the enormous 

 recent multiplication of the system, and the consequent 

 new and greatly increasing danger to the people of this 

 country by the much more rapid exhaustion of its ma- 

 nurial resources. The publication of Baron Liebig's 

 important warning to the British people, on the ruinous 

 waste of the manurial elements which should produce 

 their food, has attracted much attention, and caused a 

 considerable discussion of the sewage question. In the 



editorial remarks and various criticisms that have fol- 

 lowed upon the Baron's letter, it has been very gene- 

 rally, but erroneously, assumed that the waste of our 

 excreta, by discharging them through sewers, is an old 

 practice, that our soil has not in consequence become 

 exhausted, that, therefore, the warnings of Baron Liebig 

 betray exaggerated fears, and that we may go on in our 

 present course without injury to British agriculture. 

 My object in reading this paper is to refute these mis- 

 taken assumptions, by showing that excretal sewers are 

 of very recent formation, and that, until lately, nearly 

 all the refuse of our towns and cities found its way back, 

 most properly, to the land, thus maintaining its fertility 

 and preventing its exhaustion. Those who believe in 

 perpetual fertility should remember how small was our 

 population previous to the present century, and there- 

 fore how limited were the demands upon our soil. 

 Although there was no census of the population of the 

 last century, we may assume its average to have been 

 6 to 7 millions — a large portion employed in agricul- 

 ture. From 1700 to 1764 we exported, annually, from 

 100,000 to 950,000 quarters of corn, and from that 

 period to 1784 our exports very nearly balanced our 

 imports. Now we import 12 millions of quarters an- 

 nually, and our population approaches 30 millions. 

 During the last century much of our country was in 

 permanent pasture, which we all know is not exhausting 

 to the soil, provided the produce is consumed on 

 the spot. I have been favoured by various civil 

 engineers with copious statistics of the date and extent 

 of sewerage in our principal towns and cities. Their 

 evidence is unmistakable that it is only within the last 

 fifteen years that we have had, to any extent, sewers for 

 our excremeutitious deposits. Since the establishment 

 of Sanitary Boards, excretal sewers have multiplied ten- 

 fold. The first water-closet was made only torty-five 

 years ago ; and although the city of London was fore- 

 most in sewers, it had only seven miles of sewers in 

 1800 — now it has 49 miles. The few sewers that did 

 exist in the last century were for carrying off water, for 

 it was strictly forbidden to throw excremeutitious matter 

 into them. As to the metropolis outside the city, Mr. 

 Bazalgette writes to me : " Up to 1847, the manage- 

 ment of the metropolitan sewers was in the hands of 

 seven separate commissions of sewers, who have left no 

 records from which we can obtain the information you 

 desire ; but up to that period very little house-drainage 

 had been constructed." Mr. James Newlands, borough- 

 engineer to Liverpool, says: "In 1830, the commis- 

 sioners commenced making sewers, and in ten years 

 completed twenty miles. In 1842 they commenced 

 making ten miles more ; but these sewers were merely 



