THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



267 



the laud became saturated with moiblure like a bag ; au^l tlie 

 difficulty was this — that they got immense quantities of water 

 in the winter, when they did not want it, but a short supply 

 iu the summer, when they did. Now, in Leicester they had 

 endeavoured to precipitate the solid portion of the sewage, 

 but it had turned out to be utterly worthless, the valuable 

 portion of the manure being carried otf in a fluid state in the 

 water. He thought, also, that however useful town sewage 

 might be, the coat of transporting it to any distance into the 

 couutry would neutralize ita value. Ue considered that its value 

 depended very much upon the situation of the town itself. 

 If it stood upon a hill, for example, and the sewage could ruii 

 over the meadows, with little expense for pumping, in the 

 state in which it went from the works, it must be of a certain 

 value there could be no doubt of it. The sewage of towns 

 contained the elements of all the best manures that were known; 

 but when diluted with a vast quantity of water, the difficulty 

 was what then should they do with it ? He would conclude 

 with observing thjit the man who could discover the means 

 of precipitating into a solid that valuable portion of excreta 

 which the water now appropriated and carried away, would 

 do more for British agriculture, and for the purification of 

 our large rivers, than anyone who had yet existed. 



Mr. CuTHBERT Johnson (CroyJon) recalled the attention 

 of the Club to the real subject of discussion, namely, the 

 use and value of Sewage to Agriculture. Speaking in the 

 name of the farmers of England, he must complain that the 

 discussion had not taken that turn. Even Mr. Mechi, who 

 introduced the subject, had allowed himself to deviate rather 

 widelj' from the mark, and had travelled over a number of 

 farms upon which sewage was not employed, whilst Mr. 

 Sidney had wandered to every point of the compass, and 

 dragged before their notice a variety of bygone speeches and 

 exploded doctrines which had nothing whatever to do with 

 the matter (Hear, hear). Now the question which, as 

 practical men, bearing in mind the l. s. d. part of the story, 

 they had to decide was this. There were in this countrj' at 

 the present moment two considerable towns where the use 

 of sewiige was notoriously succesaful. One of these was 

 Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire. His Grace the Duke of 

 Portland had 400 acres of meadow land there, which was 

 irrigated with the sewage of Mansfield, and so far from 

 being afraid of its being diluted with water, he had taken 

 the whole of the little river Maun, which flowed past the 

 town of Mansfield, and, mixing it with the sewage of that 

 place, had irrigated these 400 acres. What was the result ? 

 Go to Mansfield, and ask any of the practical farmers about 

 there, who knew nothing of the doctrines which Avere pro- 

 mulgated by Mr. Mechi, and still less of what Mr. Sidney 

 had said, and they would tell you " there are 400 acres of 

 land, the richest and most productive in all Nottingham- 

 shire : the grass it produces far outdoes anything we have 

 ever seen iu our experience;" and the Duke of Portland 

 would tell you that the last tenant of the land, before it was 

 converted into water meadows, refused to pay an additional 

 3s. an acre for the renewal of his lease. [A voice : That 

 was forty years ago.] Yes; it was a good many years ago. 



Mr. Mechi : Did it not cost the Duke of Portland £150 

 an acre to arrest the sewage .'' 



Mr. C Johnson could not say ; but it was something 

 considerable. 



Mr. Mechi : And he now lets it at £10 an acre. 



A Member : What is the increase of produce since the 

 application of the system ? 



Mr. C. Johnson had put the question to his Grace ; and 

 the reply was that he did not let it, but held it in his hands ; 

 but that it was the most productive 400 acres in all Notting- 

 hamshire. 



A Member : So it was 40 years ago. 



Mr. C. Johnson : Well, let them go a little farther north. 

 In the case of Edinburgh, they had 300 or 400 acres irrigated 

 with town sewage, and within the last four or five years, so 

 satisfied were Scotchmen of the value of this manure, that 

 after employing it in the irrigation of these lands, and it had 

 fallen by its own gravity to a lower level, they had erected 

 steam-engines for pumping it again to lands of a higher eleva- 

 tion. He implored the Euglish farmers, then, not to be led 

 away by any arguments which might have been put forward 

 that night. Let them ask themselves whether, in the case for 

 instance of the immense mass of liquid manure that was 



hourly pouting into the Thames, it was not possible to avail 

 themselves of its use in some practical way. Mr. Mechi had 

 made some remarks upon the apathy and negliger.ce of the 

 farmer with regard to liquid manure. New, upon that point 

 he begged to differ from Mr. Mechi. The fact was that the 

 farmer had not the power of getting at liquid mamire (Hear, 

 hear.) And the question was, how he might get at it ; 

 whether, now that|a!l the manure of London was to be conveyed 

 four or five miles out of town, something might not be njade 

 of it ; and could it be made to answer in a pecuniary point of 

 view ? When all this liquid manure had reached the mouth 

 of the sewer at the level of Trinity high-water mark, where it 

 was of 110 use to the fwrner, so far as irrij^ating laud by its 

 own gravity was concerned, could it be raised by means of the 

 pump at such a price as to make it worthy of his notice ? 

 Anxious to obtain information upon this point, he had ad- 

 dressed some ;inquirie3 to the great manufacturers of 

 Cornish enginesat Hayle, in Cornwall, Messrs. Sandys and 

 Vivian, and he now held in his hand their reply, dated the first 

 of this month, in which they stated : " That the best Cornish 

 ste uu-engines employed for raising water from their mines, by 

 the consumption of 1121bs of Welsh coal, raise — 

 3,680 Tons of water 10 feet. 

 1,840 „ „ 20 „ 



1,226 „ „ 30 „ 



930 „ „ 40 „ 



736 „ „ 50 „ 



613 „ „ 60 „ 



So that this was equal to SO tons raised 60 feet high for one 

 penny." Supposing therefore that 500 tons or sewage were 

 needed for each application of the sewage to an acre of grass, 

 a!id that this had to be raised 60 feet, the cost for fuel to raise 

 this great bulk by a Cornish engine would be ten pence. If 

 it had to be raised only 30 feet, the cost would be five-pence. 

 But if raised 60 feet, and as at Edinburgh, the watering re- 

 peated eighteen times a year, all this wovld involve a yearly 

 cost for coals of only fifteen shillings. The question lay in a 

 nutshell ; and if, as these Cornish gentlemen said, 500 tons 

 of liquid manure could be raised 60 feet for the sum of ten- 

 pence ; if by repeating this process eighteen times a year, the 

 irrigated meads of Scotland could be let at an average of £20 

 an acre ; aud if for ISs. expended in coals similar results could 

 be produced here, then he entreated the Club to consider 

 whether the question was not deserving of serious consi- 

 deration, and the system itself of their warmest encouragement. 

 Mr. Cuthbert Johnson was subsequently asked in what 

 space of time 500 tons of liquid manure could be raised 60 

 feet ? Mr. Johnson was unable at the moment to give a 

 satisfactory answer ; but he now adds thai the fact that 

 the coal consumed in the operation would not cost more 

 than lOd., must convey the idea of great rapidity. The 

 volumes of water many Cornish engines pump up is 

 astonishing; and although not in a position to state the ex- 

 act figures, the process of raising 500 tons CO feet by the 

 consumption of a bushel of coals can be very rapidly accom- 

 plished. " Leam's Engine Reporter" for November, 1856, 

 states " that the average duty of 22 steam-engines, total 

 1,140 horse power, with a consumption of only 1,413 tons of 

 coals, has raised the enormousquantity of 11,000,000 tons of 

 water 20 yards high in one month." The time required, in 

 fact, depends upon the horse-power of the steam-engine. A 

 Cornish engine of forty-eight-horse power wouH raise the 

 amount 60 feet in less than an hour. There are two en- 

 gines of sixty and eighty-horse power at work at Spodes 

 Hole, near Spalding, which raise per minute 300 tons of 

 water seven or eight feet high (see Journal Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society, vol. viii. p. 118). 



Mr. J. Parkinson, Jun. (Notts) : Reference having been 

 made by Mr. Mechi to the value of water after it had passed 

 through the state of sewage, and by the last speaker to the 

 water-meadows of Clipstone Park particularly, he was anxious 

 to say a few words upon the subject. These water-meadows 

 were originally set out and designed by his (Mr. Parkinson's) 

 father, who first suggested the idea to his Grace the Duke of 

 Portland. Mansfield was not the populous and the important 

 town it was at present, and the idea was that the water alone 

 was to efl'ect the benefit. Subsequently, however, the town 

 grew in population and size, and the sewage becoming of 

 much greater value, had produced all the more benefit to the 

 land. After the Duke of Portland had made his extensive 



