THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



103 



representing a capital at 5 per cent, of 328J millions. 

 It has been proved by experiment that the soil acts as 

 a deodoriser, and no other effects or noisome effluvia 

 would arise from its application than arises from the 



most ordinary bucolic odours ; but if deodorization be 

 insisted upon, it could be effected with a cheap mineral 

 acid. I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



F. C. M. 



THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 



Sir,— There are few subjects that have been more 

 misrepresented than this one. Well-meaning people, 

 from seeing the wonderful effects that the drainage from 

 a dunghill produced, jumped to the conclusion that the 

 inky flood from London or any other large town would 

 " go and do likeivise." I once asked a first-class 

 fruit-grower and market-gardener why he did not 

 appropriate, honestly or dishonestly, the contents of a 

 drain that ran through his ground ? and he told me his 

 reasons for not doing so ; but I saw, by the heaps of 

 London dung that he had purchased, that his ideas were 

 quite clear as to the vast importance of London dung 

 and drainage from London stables. Some time ago I 

 was shown a pamphlet written expressly for the " Health 

 of Towns," giving the opinions of all our leading men 

 upon the subject, to the end that the filth might, by its 

 value, at least carry itself off free of charge, even if it 

 did not leave a large profit to the scavengering depart- 

 ment of the town. 



It is not my intention to find any fault with this 

 treatise, beyond stating that, as water is an excellent 

 manure of itself, it is very easy to deceive well-informed 

 people on the somewhat obscure subject of manure- 

 water. Irrigation with certain waters alone has pro- 

 duced very heavy crops of hay and aftermath for twenty 

 years consecutively. I mention this to show how easily 

 such a case could have been handled, had it been a 

 sewer that supplied the water, and not a spring. The 

 food of plants has, indeed, to be broken fine — ^yea, very 

 fine indeed — for them ; for if the atom of food were 

 large enough to be seen by the naked eye, on white 

 paper, you might as well offer the plant half a brick to 

 eat. It is therefore clear that liquid manure, from the 

 bare fact of its being diffused, spread, broken to atoms, 

 is in the best form to feed plants ; but plants can be 

 poisoned as easily as they can be fed ; and, as none but 

 God can create, all that we can do is to put together the 

 materials out of which we expect the result, or, in other 

 words, to manure for our crops according to the nature 

 and wants of the said crops. 



In manuring for grass, we must consider that under 

 the general name of grass we find the meadows growing 

 weeds of all kinds as well as graminece. I shall just 

 quote one example, to show the absurdities of the name 

 of " natural grass." Under the ruined castle at Not- 

 tingham, in the " meadows rich" where " heifers low," 

 I observed the grass to be a completely matted sward of 

 autumn crocus {ColcJilcum autumnale). Consult any 

 botanical work, and you will see what the " vertues" of 

 such a crop are. Plants indigenous to such places can- 

 not fail to be highly benefited by the sewer-water, diluted 

 more or less by floods scattered warping fashion over 



them, just as the Egyptian corn lands get their annual 

 sliming and soaking by the gigantic irrigation from the 

 Nile. 



The dye-water from such a town as Leek (a small 

 town) damages the Charnet water for all practical pur- 

 poses of irrigation. Leicester, again, is an unprofitable 

 example of a dyer's town dealing with its own wash to 

 make it pay. Carlisle sewerage is now in able hands, 

 and, coming nearer to rational principles, may lead to 

 simpler and more natural ideas of dealing with dirty 

 water. 



'^ In the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom j" 

 and although the eminent men already in the field may 

 know everything, it by no means follows that one tithe 

 of their knowledge will ever get a fair trial in actual 

 practice — first, on account of costs ; and frequently 

 on account of fixed laws, such as levels being dead 

 against them. A city set upon a hill would give, 

 no doubt, great facilities for disposing of its dirty 

 water ; but the natural arteries of water-conveyance 

 have generally laid our large towns along both banks of 

 some river, once clean, no doubt, but not in our day. 

 "The river," lackaday ! has been canal and common 

 sewer for half a century. 



It is to the part of the sewer-water that can be kept 

 out of the main artery of the river, that I now beg leave 

 to direct attention, and to apply the natural scavengers, 

 that have always done this sort of work gratis, and are 

 now doing it at a very high expense, where their arti- 

 ficial services are wanted, 



I am not going to enumerate from " Loudon's Cata- 

 logue " a list of hard names, but shall quote about three 

 or four of the most familiar plants in cultivation ; and 

 when you have heard the history — the real natural 

 history of these, many will no doubt wonder why we 

 have not had these common-sense ideas long ago in 

 " Mawe's Gardener," and others. 



The '* mud-larks" that we read of in old times, 

 such as the Jews in their Egyptian servitude, whilst on 

 the ground moulding and burning brick, were evidently 

 delighted with the onion tribe, which they must have got 

 pretty freely, for they murmured for want of this more 

 than for anything else— or, in other words, the article 

 must have abounded ; as well it might, where such mud- 

 works were in existence, for we find that the natural 

 localities of the Alliums are, for example, on the banks 

 of the Thames opposite Kew Gardens, and on such-like 

 localities. Indeed, the composition of the onion, and the 

 character of its feeders, would all point to the deep, soft, 

 rich banks of some slough or muddy stream, where, 

 like the oyster, it might feed itself on town-wash. 

 When I have put manure three feet deep for onions, 



