114 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [April,. 



system, that it can be accomplished by a single generation. It is 

 admitted, on the contrary, that the complete tubularization of the 

 farms of Europe must be a task as gradual as the complete drain 

 and water pipeage of her towns, or as the universal extension of 

 her railway and electric communications. But as the magnitude 

 of such a project may be, for many minds, the very pivot on which 

 their judgment of it, favorable or adverse, may turn, the Keporter 

 quotes here, from a speech of Mr. F. 0. Ward (in 1855), some 

 remarks bearing on this point. 



" It is argued," said the speaker, after adverting to the cost of 

 the requisite pipeage, — " it is argued from this vast expenditure, 

 and widely-extended range of distribution, that the plan is imprac- 

 ticable. But I think this resembles the arguments used against 

 gas-lighting at the outset. ' What !' it was said in the old days of 

 oil-lamps, to the daring innovators who proposed gas-lighting, ' do 

 you seriously ask us to tear up all the streets of our towns, and 

 lay down thousands of miles of subterranean arteries, to circulate 

 a subtile vapor through every street and into every house, to do, at the 

 costs of millions upon millions, what our lamps and candles already 

 do sufficiently well?' Such was the language used ; and the pro- 

 posal of gas-lighting was regarded at the outset, by the majority 

 of mankind, as the wildest and most visionary halluncination. 

 But when Murdoch's factory had been illuminated with gas, the 

 whole problem was virtually solved ; and when the first line of gas- 

 lights burned along Pall Mall, the illumination of all the towns of 

 Europe became a mere question of time. Just so, when the first 

 farm was successively laid down with irrigating tubes for the 

 distribution of liquid manure, there ceased to be any force in the 

 argument about the quality and cost of pipeage for this purpose. 

 =^ * * Nor should we be deterred from grappling with the sewage 

 problem by contemplating the vast magnitude of the results to 

 which it will lead in the course of time — of generations, perhaps, 

 when the whole subsoil of Europe will probably be piped for the 

 distribution of liquid manure, just as all Flanders is already honey- 

 combed with tanks for its storage." 



Summary of the Manure-Question in its Historical 

 Relations. — If the foregoing views be correct, the present pecu- 

 liar and provisional condition of the manurial industry in England 

 is due to a series of concatenated influences, springing from the 

 invention of the steam-engine as their common source, and com- 



