THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



509 



that Professor Voelcker, in his Paper on Sewage Irriga- 

 tion, in the last number of the "Royal Agricultural 

 Society's Journal," attaches no vulue to 50,000 gallons 

 of water per acre, or a rain- fall of more than two inclies. 

 As a farmer said to mcthe other day, " If you can't get 

 water, you can't get grass "; and be was quite right. 



Saving of Food uy Steam Cultcre.— A diminu- 

 tion of one- third or more of our horse-power would set 

 free for the food of man a vast extent of our soil. If 

 the horses of agriculture consume the produce of one- 

 fifth of its available area, it follows that something like 

 2,500,000 acres would be gained for food for the 

 population. Spackman estimates the farm-horses at 

 1,500,000 — in my opinion far too large an estimate, 

 seeing, on arable farms, that we have only one horse to 

 twenty- five acres. Every hundred acres of arable laud 

 require four horses, and each horse consumes the pro- 

 duce of five acres, or the food of seven men. I consi- 

 der that steam for cultivation, grinding, and thrashing, 

 chaff-cutting, pumping, &c., would economise two-fifths 

 of the horse-power of the farm. 



Warmth of Soil gained by Deep Steam 

 Cdltivatiok. — We all know that heat and moisture 

 are the two elements of decomposition and of rapid 

 growth, as shown in tropical countries. Deep and 

 loose cultivation tends to this result — possibly the action 

 of light may also be important. One cause of the rapid 

 growth of market-garden vegetation is depth of cultiva- 

 tion, combined with the subterranean heat of decompo- 

 sing town manure ; and wherever there is heat, moisture 

 is attracted. The necessity for a more perfect cultiva- 

 tion is obvious ; even on a fallow you may pick up small 

 hard knobs or clods, which, on breaking into fragments, 

 exhibit a little treasure of unexplored and unavailed-of 

 territory, confirming the great Jethro TulFs principle 

 of infinitesimality in cultivation. I have great faiih ia 

 Crosskill's clod-crusher, in very dry weather, for un- 

 locking obstinate clods. Might not that heavy tool be 

 drawn by steam .' It would only require guide- 

 wheels, &c. 



Town Sewage applied by Steam. — I have so 

 often enlarged upon the vital importance to this 

 country of sewage-irrigation from our towns, that I will 

 only say to my brother-farmers — Consider the value of 

 a daily folding on the land of twenty-eight millions of 

 well-fed human beings (or sheep), and add to this all 

 the animal deposits in our towns, and various other 

 waste products, and you may then fairly estimate how 

 much you lose by permitting these treasures to flow 

 a-.vay to the sea. Let it be " vriiled" by agriculture, 

 and the engineering difficulties will vanish. Thirteen- 

 fourteenths of the excrement of human beings and 

 animals are the urine ; so that it is in a condition to 

 flow away, even without the addition of water. Watford, 

 Rugby, and other towns will bear witness to the facility 

 with which this operation may be effected ; but it must 

 be done by steam power, and that is why I mention it in 

 this paper. The question will very soon force itself to a 

 solution ; for in spite of filtration, the fluid from our 

 Board of Health works poisons our rivers in summer, 

 That solution must inevitably be a filtration through an 



agricultural soil, from which the nasliness of our towns 

 and cities will rc-appear in the more acceptable form of 

 food for their inhabitants. The great privy question 

 must be talked about and dealt with, in spite of our 

 delicate sensibility. The question of the application of 

 the sewage of our towns to agricultural fertilization is 

 one that is gradually forcing itself upon public attention, 

 und is dependent on tlie use of steam. The very fact of 

 a large water supply to our towns will compel its appli- 

 cation to the soil, or your rivers will become sewers. 

 There are no cesspools now from which it may be 

 taken in carts to the land. The Board of Health at 

 Crovdon are in a complete fix in Chancery on this ques- 

 tion. The anglers on the pellucid river Wandle will not 

 receive it, and the landowners are bringing their action 

 because they will not have their land fertilized by it, 

 however agreeable and profitable it may be to the 

 tenants ; where, then, is it to go ? When I stood over 

 the tanks at Croydon, into which flowed the nastiness of 

 28,000 people, and reflected on that estuary which is to 

 po ir into the Thames at one point the abominations of 

 2,800,000 living beings, besides thatof tens of thousands 

 of animals, I almost trembled for the result. Take this 

 Croydon affair as an example of the facility and cheap- 

 ness with which irrigation may be effected by steam 

 power. A single engine, consuming fifteen shillings- 

 worth of coals every twenty-four hours, raises one mil- 

 lion gallons of water, and then forces it through a 12- 

 inch pipe to a tank a mile distant, and 150 feet above 

 the engine. Now it is quite clear that about the same 

 power and the same size pipe would re distribute sub- 

 tcrraneously to certain hydrants on the fields the 

 said quantity of water when emiched with all the good 

 things of Croydon. 



Agriculture compared with Manufactures. 

 — Spackman, in his " Occupations of the People," esti- 

 mates the agricultural interest in laud and tenants' 

 capital for the United Kingdom as £2,000,000,000, cr 

 twenty-five times as large as the manufacturing interest, 

 which he estimates at £'78,000,000. Although I think 

 this is exaggerated, there can be no doubt that agricul- 

 ture is by far the largest interest in the kingdom. But is it 

 the most intelligent and unprejudiced ? I think not. If I 

 were to test this comparatively, I should estimate it by 

 the amount of steam power which it employs relatively 

 to the other great producing interests of the country. 

 Let us see how the matter stands. So far as I am able 

 to obtain approximate esiimates — 



Horse-power. 

 Manufactures employ 150,000 steam-engines 



of an average power of 20 horses 3,000,000 



Railway locomotives, 7,550, 100-horse 



power 755,000 



Marine engines, 2,000, of 100-horse power 200,000 



Our armed steam navy, 450 ships 100,000 



Agriculture, only 6,000, 8-horse power 48,000 



Now, if Mr. Spackman is right, agriculture should 

 employ millions of horse-power, instead of only 48,000. 



In these days, I take the use of steam to be the 

 measure of progression, intelligence, and profit. What 

 is there in agriculture so complicated or difficult that 

 steam could not master ? I saw in Manchester, the 



