THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



149 



one or two trustworthy men be first engaged, and thus 

 try the experiment. It would very soon transpire what 

 measure of success attended their efforts. Their object 

 would be to ascertain and report upon the capacity of 

 the various rivers for carrying off the floods ; the ob- 

 structions from improper bridges, mill-dams, weirs, 

 staunches, unnecessary bends ; the rights of owners, 

 corporations, navigation, and the extent of land 

 damaged by flooding, or to be rendered more valuable 

 by reclamation ; the state of the various tributaries to 

 these rivers, streams, brooks, &c., and wherein these 

 require improvement so as to benefit the upper country 

 in respect to subsoil drainage and the speedier transit of 



their waters. They should also note the river outfalls, 

 with suggestions for their improvement if required ; and 

 the extent of land to be regained in every way, and its 

 value ; with any other relative information conducive to 

 the spread of agricultural knowledge. 



I cannot think the Society would be departing from 

 its acknowledged duties in undertaking this highly useful 

 and laudable engagement, fraught as it must be with 

 vast results. A body of information thus brought to- 

 gether would form the basis for legislation, or any other 

 course which might ultimately be adopted for improving 

 the rivers or reclaiming the lands subject to their 

 influence. 



THE SEWAGE QUESTION. 



We have deprecated the gi-andiloquent language about 

 our " beds of guano," which some have indulged in, because 

 we object to the introduction of fine phrases into a purely 

 practical question, K pure guano could for ever be got for 

 £10 a ton there would probably be no occasion to advocate 

 sewage irrigation, and wa might confine ourselves to the 

 subject of deodorizing for the rest of our lives; but in truth, 

 although our supply may be ample for this and the succeed- 

 ing generation, it is never pure, and the supply will proba- 

 bly fail us in thirty years or less. 



A brief glance at the causes which make guano a present 

 blessing, and may make the use of sewage a future necessity, 

 may not be out of place here. Of all the chemical products 

 of the soil, the return of which is necessary to keep up 

 equal fertility, the phosphates are those which appear tlie 

 nxost difficult to obtain save through the agency of man, 

 beast, or bird, and by the ordinary process which belongs 

 to daily life. We extract these phosphates in the food we 

 grow ; they are the agents which help to build up the bony 

 structure of man and beasts, and they pass off into our 

 sewers and stable-yards, and are seen also in the deposits of 

 guano on the coast of South America. Most of our readers 

 know that few lands have a succession of wheat crops ; and 

 the fertile lands where tobacco grows are gradually ex- 

 hausted, because the phosphates and other sal's extracted 

 by the plant are not returned in like proportion. 



If English lands are less poor than others, it is because 

 the phosphates are returned in the shape of farm-yard ma- 

 nure, and of late years in the form of bone-manure and 

 guano, and the result would he still better if these latter 

 were put on in an unadulterated form. We learn from an 

 interesting paper, read before the Academy of Sciences at 

 Pai-is, by M. Boussingault, that in some places on the Peru- 

 vian coast the lowest guano deposits are covered with a 

 stratum of alluvial soil, and that on this a fresh deposit of 

 guano is again covered by a second stratum of sand. The 

 slight admixture of soil with the manure which is due to 

 these causes is not thought sufficient for English coniuier- 

 cial ideas, for we understand that the light, friable loam 

 from the Epping Forest is mixed with the guano in lighters 

 in the Thames, and sold to the public as the genuine article 

 fresh from Peru ! Now, if we think that the English far- 

 mer objects to carting on to his land a mass of inert matter 

 which should form part of a solid sewage manure, we are 

 certain that he will still more object to paying for loam at 

 the price of guano, and, when the adulteration to which it 



is subject becomes better known, it will probably find less 

 favour than lieretofore in the eyes of the agriculturist. 

 The same remark holds good with reference to bone ma- 

 nure, which is still more difficult to obtain in a pure form. 

 These facts lead us to regard any proposition for utilising 

 sewage by means of irrigation with even greater favour 

 than its mere relative value, when compared with ;;Mrc 

 guano at a fair price, would induce ; and a careful conside- 

 ration of the whole question leads us to look forward anx- 

 iously to the result of the proposed experiments at Croydon. 



Witli every disposition to encourage a well-organized 

 system of sewage irrigation, we cannot help seeing that 

 local arrangements and the caprice of landowners may ren- 

 der it far from practicable within the metropolitan area. It 

 remains for us to deal with the several methods that have 

 been proposed for deodorizing, and pick out from among 

 them that which we think offers the best evidence of doing 

 its work effectually and economicallj'. 



If plans have been numerous for turning sewage into 

 manure, they have been no less so for making the former 

 compound harmless previous to its incorporation with the 

 river water ; nay, methods have been devised for making 

 the river itself sweet after the garbage of London has been 

 thrown into it. Among the impracticable ones, we notice 

 one by Mr. Burness, who proposes to have separate systems 

 for sewage and surface water ; the latter of which he would 

 filter, and the former disperse, by means of pipes, into the 

 country ; on the ground that its value is, in reality, much 

 greater than chemical analysis would show, " because," he 

 says, " during the process of decomposition of animal and 

 vegetable matter, oxygen is worked up both from water and 

 the atmosphere ; consequently hydrogen is liberated from 

 the former, and nitrogen from the latter; so that these two, 

 uniting, form ammonia, one of the best fertilizers." Unfor- 

 tunately for this pleasant theory, which would give us so 

 easily a compound worth £b6 per ton, nitrogen, the im- 

 portant element in ammonia, is not exhibited in a nascent 

 state, and therefore could not combine with hydrogen. We 

 have dwelt on the method rather for the sake of showing 

 how elegant a theory may be constructed when chemical 

 facts are disregarded. Perhaps Mr. Andy's manganates and 

 per-manganates offer the best means of deodorizing, if they 

 were not so uncommonly expensive. Ferruginous sulphate 

 of alumina, proto-sulphate of iron, and chloride of sodium, 

 combined with hydrochloric acid, pyiitous peat, carbonate 

 of lime, and many like chemicals, have been suggested, but 



