THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



265 



cereal as to jjrccn crops. The discussion, however, did not 

 end there. In December, 1856, Mr. Fothergill Cook read 

 before the Society of Arts a paper, in which he tried to make 

 out that aomethiog could be made out of solid manure deo- 

 dorized—an idea which had long since been rejected. On 

 that occasion Mr. Chadwick aijain expressed his views ; 

 and he (Mr. Sidney) entered into the whole history of the 

 matter, and directed special attention to the c:ise of the 

 Rugby Farm, " Where, on 200 acres of wonderfully porous 

 soil, a good ell'ect had been produced on grass." And this 

 was the only practical instance; although, in 1853, Mr. 

 Chadwick had written to the Home Secretary", stating that 

 ten towns were about to use sewage irrigation; and that in 

 1856 a paper, read under Mr. Chadwick's auspices at the 

 Free Trade Congress at Brussels, insinuated that a hundred 

 towns in England were about to derive revenue from sewage 

 irrigation, aud Mr. Mechi and Mr. Walker, the attorne}' 

 of Rugby, wei-e held out as the leaders of agricultural pro- 

 gress in England ! In 1857, Mr. Chadwick wrote a letter to 

 the " Journal" of the Society of Arts, containing a statement, 

 which, if true, would have made the fortunes of all who used 

 sewage manure, namely — " lyiree years increaiing cor7i crops 

 by the tcse ofsewagf alone ; last year at the rate of 50 bushels 

 an acre at Rugby." "At Mr. Mechi' a, and the netv liquified 

 manure farms in England, the yield has been almost invari- 

 ably one quarter heavier than the highest obtained by the ordi- 

 nary culture !" Having read that, he put himself in a railway 

 train aud made a second visit to Mr. Berry Congreve, the oc- 

 cupier of the farm referred to (the brother of the Mr. Congreve 

 who was present in the room). That gentleman told him that 

 he had never had more than ten acres of wheat under the 

 system at all ; that the application of sewage manure was a 

 mere experiment, and had been a total failure, the result being 

 leas every year. 



Mr. Alderman Mechi said Mr. Sidney had not told them 

 what the prodnce was. 



Mr. Sidney aaid he forgot what it was; it was, however, 

 ridiculously small. On his return he embodied the result of 

 his enquiries in a letter to the " Journal" of the Society of 

 Arts. In this letter, after giving the result of his enquiries at 

 Rugby, which completely contradicted Mr. Chadwick, he said: 

 " Mr. Mechi's crop was not grown with weak sewage liquid, 

 or even with the contents of his liquid manure tanks, but with 

 a liberal application of guano and salt. He grew bad crops 

 with mere liquid ; but having imitated Mr. Fisher Hobbs, Mr. 

 Hutley, and Mr. Hudson, he grew fair crops." To this letter 

 Mr. Chadwick and Mr. Mechi both replied. The first flew off 

 to the south of France and Africa, and the Alderman accused 

 him (Mr. Sidnsy) of mis-stating " facts;" and ended with — 

 " In spite of the Sidneys of olher days, gas, steam, the electric 

 telegraph, and other once-called impossibilities, have resolved 

 themselves into acknowledged truths." To this letter, which 

 was a mere evasion of the point at issue, he (Mr. Sidney) re- 

 plied by a statement which contained this paragraph : — " In a 

 debate at our Farmer's Club, April, 1856, Mr. Nesbit, the 

 agricultural chemist, said — ' I recollect some years ago being 

 down at Mr. Hutley's farm, in Essex, and perceiving that, 

 without scieuce, Mr. HuUey completely thrashed mj' friend 

 Mechi, with science.' Mr. Hutley applied 15 or 20 loads per 

 acre of farmyard dung in the autumn, and ploughed the land 

 five or six times. la the spring, before sowing, he applied 

 3 cwt. of guano, 4 cwt. of salt, aud some rapecake, aud drilled 

 the maugel seed with a little superphosphate. The result was 

 40 tons per acre on Mr. Hutley's farm, whereas Mr. Mechi 

 averaged only about 13 tons. Mr. Mechi has since improved." 

 Mr. Mechi followed, with his usual good humour, never men- 

 tioned liquid manure, but said — " He concurred with Mr. 

 Nesbit. His largest crop, 43^ tons to the acre, had been 

 grown by 20 to 30 loads of farmyard manure, 5 cwt. of guano, 

 and 2 cwt. of salt to the acre; manuring the surface, then 

 double trenching, aud a?ain manuring the deep furrows. Such 

 treatment paid in the growing crop, and gr.atly increased the 

 after crop." He (Mr. Sidney) thought that they would all agree 

 with him that that was pretty good farming, and that after Mr. 

 Mechi had put oa his land loads of farm-yard manure, guano 

 and superphosphate in such abundance, it was not quite fair 

 to write and talk as if it was liquid manure that grew 

 such large crops (Hear, hear.) In August, 1857, a French 

 gentleman, who was, he believed, well known to many per- 

 sons in that room, he meant Mons. Barral, editor of the 



Journal d' Agriculture Pratique, one of the most able and 

 conscientious men he had ever met with, came to this country 

 for the purpose of examining this liquid manure system, and 

 having visited various farms, including that at Rugby, and 

 those in Scotland, the result was that he made a most unfa- 

 vourable report. For this he was attacked in the Journal of 

 the Society of Arts, in very strong terms, by Mr. Chadwick, 

 who seemed to ignore the fact that besides being a dis- 

 tinguished chemist, Mons. Barral was the editor of the lead- 

 ing agricultural journal in France, or on the Continent. Mr. 

 Chadwick said, that what Mons. Barral stated respecting the 

 farm at Myremill was devoid of truth, and insinuated that 

 that gentleman aud himself (Mr. Sidney) were retained by 

 interests hostile to those who were engaged in the cause of 

 science and health. He would not trouble them with his own 

 answer to that letter, because facts had subsequently estab- 

 lished the truth of what was questioned at the time. Mons. 

 Barral was followed in his investigations by Mons. Rialer, a 

 gentleman from Switzerland, where liquid manure was very 

 much used ; and this distinguished writer, in a letter to the 

 Journal d' AyricuUure Pratique, aa.\d : "None but amateurs 

 had yet adopted the liquid manure system alone. Noblemen 

 and gentlemen with plenty of money to spare had tried it by 

 itself; but Mr. Mechi, influenced perhaps by the example of 

 the practical farmers with whom he associated, had taken care 

 to apply plenty of solid manure, and plenty of phosphate aud 

 guano." " It will never extend lu England or Scotland, be- 

 cause those are wheat-growing countries," continued Mons. 

 Risler, " aud where they gruw wheat they will use the 

 straw." That was the opinion, be it observed, cf a gen- 

 tleman from Switzerland, where liquid manure was exclu- 

 sively used. After repeating a joke against Mr. Mechi, 

 he said : " No serious example can be quoted of turning 

 all the manure into liquid. Mr. Mechi had told them 

 with commendable candour that the farm at Vaiijouis, near 

 Paris, started by a joint stock company, uuder the auspices 

 of Mr. Chadwick, assisted by a grant from the French 

 Government, and aided by the advice of eminent agricul- 

 tural chemists, had proved a failure. He attributed the 

 failure, indeed, to the rabbits ; but never had money been lost 

 through the adoption of a crotchet without some extraneous 

 reason being alleged to account for the failure (Hear. hear). 

 These were the results of past experience; he (Mr. Sidney) 

 would be very glad if the future produced something better. 

 He had brought them down to 1357-8, but he would not limit 

 his retrospect to that period. As they had heard from Mr. 

 Mechi how Mr. Telfer, with liquid manure, produced 40 tons 

 an acre in Scotland, in 1855, and how much it would produce 

 under the same system near London, he would show what was 

 the condition of the Scotch farms in 1860. If liquid manure did 

 not answer on those farms, where persons washed in guino 

 and gas water, how could it answer to sink a couple of mil- 

 lions in conveying such manure to the farms near London ? 

 Myremill farm, with 300 acres, (furnished with pumps and 

 pipes) was washed for six j'ears, viz., 1850 to 1856, for the 

 proprietor, Mr. Primrose William Kennedy, banker, of Ayr, 

 by his agent, Mr. James Kenned}-. In 1856, Mr. James 

 Kennedy left, and went to a farm in England. During that 

 period ot six years the sum sunk on Myremill farm, as proved 

 in the accounts of the Western Bank of Scotland, when it was 

 wound up, was £33,000. 

 A Member : What is the number of acres ? 



Mr. Sidney : 300 freehold ; about 300 more held ou 

 a lease. Competent authorities estimate that after making 

 a liberal allowance for buildings aud improvements? the 

 positive loss on this liquid manure farm, of 300 acres, had 

 not been less than 18,000^., being an average of 3,000/. 

 a-year (Hear, hear). That was the farm which had been 

 referred to at Paris, Brussels, at the Society of Arts, the Far- 

 mers' Club, snd every place where Mr. Chadwick or Mr. Mechi 

 had opened his moutii on the subject of sewage, as presenting 

 an example for British farmers to follow. 



Mr. Mechi: Do you know that it is let at a greatly in- 

 creesed rental' 



Mr. Sidney said it was let at that moment for 800/. 

 a-year— it had never been let at any rent before — a 

 very poor return for an expenditure of about 50,000/. 

 (Hear, hear). After being managed for a short time for the 

 landlord by a Mr. Smith, Myremill was let on lease, in 1857, 



