26i 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



in money matters, the townspeople of Edinburgh had 

 not thought proper to have the cultivation extended 

 beyond two hundred acres. Scotchmen were not people 

 who were in the habit of throwing away a shilling, and 

 they might depend upon it there were very good reasons 

 why the area of cultivation had not been extended, 



A Member observed that the area cultivated was 400 

 acres, and that all the sewage available was used. 



Mr. Sidney had been otherwise informed. The state- 

 ment of what had been done in the vicinity of Edinburgh 

 produced such a powerful effect on the minds of the 

 Commissioners of Metropolitan Sewers, that they in- 

 serted an advertisement in the newspapers inviting all 

 Ibe farmers within fifty miles of London to send in ten- 

 ders for the sewage. In 1848, their excellent friend, 

 Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, called the attention of British 

 farmers to this subject, and urged upon them not to allow 

 such a chance to be lost ; and he had reiterated his views 

 in nearly the same words in 1860. The Commissioneis 

 employed Mr. Austen to assist them in carrying out 

 their scheme. That gentleman sketched out a very 

 pretty plan by which the sewage was to be pumped out 

 for the farmers and market gardeners round London. 

 Tiie only difficulty in the case was that the farmers would 

 not buy the manure (laughter), and in 1856 Mr. Austen 

 came to the conclusion that was arrived at by other 

 eminent engineers, namely, that the carrying out of his 

 pi in would involve great cist without any profitable re- 

 turns. In 1851, Mr. Superintendent Lee was sent to 

 report on the liquid manure farms of England in work 

 and about to be worked. He found Mr. Liitledale, a 

 wealthy Liverpool merchant, Mr. Nielson, a Liverpool 

 broker, the Duke of Sutherland, and other wealthy 

 amateurs, working, or about to work, pumping appa- 

 ratus, pipes, and hose. He wrote a sort of prophetic 

 report, promising extraordinary profits, and ended by 

 recommending Mr. Robert Smith, of Exmoor, to sub- 

 stitute a steam engine, underground pipes, and hose for 

 his catch meadows. This report, although some of the 

 farms have been abandoned, and none have realised a 

 profitj has been quoted as a standard authority by the 

 liquid theorists from that day to the present. In 1853, 

 Mr. Mechi read before the Society ot Arts a paper on 

 his own agricultural practice at Tiptree Farm.- On that 

 occasion he said: — "The difficulties are insignificant : 

 they exist in the brain, not in the fact. But you must 

 v^ork a change in the minds of the agriculturists, or they 

 will hardly take as a gift, much less pay for liquid 

 sewage." And Mr. Mechi was consistent : he was say- 

 ing the same thing in 1857. All he would say in refer- 

 ence to this, was, that agriculturists with very little 

 science showed a good deal more sense than some people 

 W'ith very great scientific pretensions (laughter). In 

 1854, Mr. Mechi read another paper before the Society 

 of Arts. He (Mr. Sidney) took the liberty of saying a 

 few words in reply to the paper, which, he might re- 

 mark, was as ingenious and eloquent as that to which 

 they had just listened ; though, there being less expe- 

 rience to draw upon, the writer had more scope for his 

 imagination (laughter.) He would appeal to them 

 v.hether the following was not a correct account of the 

 solid and liquid manure theory : — "As to liquid manure, 

 there were no doubt circumstances under which it might 

 b3 used with advantage for green crops, but the balance 

 of evidence was against its exclusive use for every kind 

 of crop. The use of solid manure was mechanical as 

 well as chemical. When once laid in the soil the labour 

 was done : it gradually and surely gave forth its fertility. 

 Liquid manure was not economical, sometimes injurious 

 to root crops, and to corn crops positively injurious — 

 stimulating the straw at the expense of the ear, and 

 pushing away the soil from the roots. Applied to grass 

 at proper times, especially Italian rye-grass, and in 

 proper quantities, the results are very satisfactory. But 



young farmers must pause before they altered the whole 

 economy of their farms, and went to great expenses in 

 iron pipes, hose, pumping, and building tanks for a 

 manure so difficult to manage, and available for only 

 one kind of crop." Thus they would see that they were 

 not then in a state of experiment, but had had years of 

 experience, and he had watched the thing very closely 

 throughout. In 1855 Mr. Mechi read a paper before 

 the Farmers' Club, on town sewage, and was supported 

 by Mr. Chadwick. In 1855 Mr. Chalmers Morton, of 

 the Agricultural Gazette, read an able paper (his papers 

 were always able) in which he gave an account of the 

 liquid-manure farms of the north of Scotland. These 

 were what might be termed the stronghold of the liquid 

 manure theorists. They were always telling them aboixt 

 what Mr. Telfer and Mr. Kennedy had done. Now 

 here he must say that, while on the one hand 

 credit was due to Mr. Mechi for urging on landlords 

 the necessity of agricultural improvements, he ought 

 not, in speaking of Mr. Telfer and Mr, Kennedy's 

 farms, to have concealed the fact that the system 

 adopted by them had been a failure (Hear, hear, and 

 No, no). He would place before them a statement of 

 the condition of those farms in 1860 ; and when he bad 

 done so, they would be astonished at Mr. Mechi having 

 been referred to them as affording proofs of the value 

 of liquid manure. Mr. Morton, in 1855, said,"! 

 have never been on a farm where such a detailed 

 record of every operation and its result is kept, 

 as is kept at Cunning Park." " Twenty-five acres, 

 under irrigation, wholly kept forty-eight cattle." 

 " During two years, an acre will have yielded between 

 80 and 100 tons green food, in seven cuttings, by the 

 use of a ton of artificial manure, and 700 tons of dilute 

 liquid." " Mr. Telfer sends his butter up 400 miles, to 

 Jermyn-street. It fetches as high a price as any in the 

 market ; and I believe that, notwithstanding the expense 

 of carriage, and the high pressure under which it is 

 made, it reaches Jermyn-street with as large a balance 

 of profit per lb. to the maker as any that is sold." 

 " And I quite expect, as the result of this day's meet- 

 ing, to find that Mr. Telfer's practice is being copied in 

 the neighbourhood of London." Now, if it had been a 

 fact that 25 acres of land supported 48 cattle, and that 

 butter was sold at a profit, at a distance of 400 miles, 

 the result must indeed have been satisfactory ; but he 

 felt quite certain that Mr. Morton had been deceived. 

 It might be remembered by some that there was a 

 very hot discussion in 1855 in reference to the hay 

 crops of these farms. The farmers of England were 

 continually worried by being asked by landlords and 

 others why they did not imitate the Scotch liquid 

 manure farmers, and told that they must be a 

 slow set of fellows (laughter). He would prove, before he 

 had done, that the slowness was on the other side. In the 

 same year, in 1855, Mr. J. B. liawes read a paper before the 

 Society of Arts on the sewage of lands ; and in that admi- 

 rable production he stated distinctly that sewage manure 

 was of no value whatever except for green crops. Mr. 

 Lawes analyzed the matter very closely, dispelled a great 

 many absurd exaggerations with respect to it, and recom- 

 mended that any experiments which might be made should 

 be made very carefully indeed. On that occasion, having 

 recently visited some liquid-manure farms, and endeavoured 

 to make himself master of the subject, he (Mr. Sidney) took 

 some part in the discussion, pointed out the enormous ex- 

 aggerations which had prevailed, and remarked that the coun- 

 try had for some time been too much under the influence 

 of the Board of Health as regarded the value of sewage. 

 His observations gave great offence to Mr. Chadwick, Avho 

 said "there was no foundation for the assertion that liquid 

 manure was not applicable to all kinds of crops, and ven- 

 tured to declare that it was exceedingly beneficial to cereal 

 crops." Knowing that the corn crops were the most important 

 in the estimation of British agriculturists, he endeavoured to 

 persuade them that liquid manure was as beneficial to 



