September 4, 1373. ] 



JOURNAL OF HDSTIOtJLTURS AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



167 



HOUSE SEWAGE A SAFE AND MOST VALUABLE 

 FERTILISER. 



many letters have reached us asking so 

 earnestly for our opinion " whether the use 

 of house sewage is likely to produce disease 

 either in man or animal partaking of the 

 crop to which it is applied ? " that we insert 

 this answer to all our querists thus promi- 

 nently. 



One correspondent encloses the following 

 extract from Medical Notes ami Queries : — 

 " Is all the food absorbed by plants digested 

 and assimilated by them ? We are afraid to dogmatise 

 even where the facts appear incontrovertible, but we can 

 have little doubt, if any, that in many cases plants, like 

 men, take into theii- systems much more food than they 

 can digest, and that foul juices may, therefore, exist un- 

 changed within their vessels. A simple illustration will 

 suffice to show this, and we will only refer to the well- 

 known fact that early Rhuliarb, unskilfully forced with 

 horse droppings, will often taste strongly of the manure. 

 In the case of pastures, who can doubt that plants so 

 crowded together as the Grass plants are, must be weakly ; 

 that their digestion, probably, is so too; and that if their 

 supply of food be not very carefully regulated for them, 

 fluid matter, of whatever kind, that is brought in contact 

 ■with their absorbing surfaces will be taken up in greater 

 quantity than can be digested, and, consequently, that 

 some of it will remain unassimilated and unchanged 

 within the tissues of the plants? Positive observation, 

 indeed, supports this ^-iew. Herr Lefeldt, a civil engineer 

 appointed by the Prussian Government to report upon 

 our sewage systems, found that, for some inches above 

 the roots, tlie stems of sewage-iiTigated grass were filled 

 with unassimilated fiecal matters ; and that if the irriga- 

 tion were continued till within two days of mowing, the 

 cows would not cat the grass. Why should not sewage 

 matter existing thus unchanged within the tissues of grass 

 produce the same effect upon the animal that swallows 

 it, as if it were taken directly, without the intervention of 

 the plant ? Wo can see no reason why there should Ije 

 any difference ; and the argument from the observation 

 of Hen- Lefeldt, therefore, appears to be a very simple 

 and direct one. It may be stated as a syllogism thus : 

 No one denies that sewage matter, unchanged, will cause 

 typhoid fever ; but sewage grass, under certain circum- 

 stances, contains sewage matter unchanged ; therefore, 

 clearly, sewage grass may, under certain circumstances, 

 transmit the typhoid germs." 



Now wo assert without any reser\-ation that neither 

 Herr Lefeldt nor any other examinant of the subject ever 

 found any ficcal matter in the stem of any rjrowinr/ plant. 

 If Oie plant was dead or dying, then by mere capillary 

 attraction such matter might pass into the tubes of the 

 stems. Whilst a plant is alive its roots are endowed 

 with a selecting power, and tliey never absorb anytliing 

 prejudicial to the plant's hoaltli. This was long since 

 demonstrated by special experiment. M. Saussm-e found 

 Ko, WO.-VoL. XXV., Sew Serbs. 



" when various salts were dissolved at once in the same 

 solutions, and plants made to vegetate in them, that dif- 

 ferent proportions of the salts were absorbed. The follow- 

 ing table exhibits the result of these trials, supposing the 

 original weight of each salt to have been 100. Each so- 

 lution contains -ijjith part of its weight of each salt. 



, J Sulphate of soda efBoresced 11.7 



'■ I Muriate of soda 22.0 



Q J Sulphate of soda effloresced 12.0 



"^ 1 Muriate ot potash 1 1 .0 



o J Acetate of lime 8.0 



( Muriate of potash 33.0 



, j Nitrate of lime 4.5 



1 Muriiite of ammonia 16.5 



r j Acetate of lime 31.0 



'' 1 Sulphate of copper 34.0 



P I Nitrate of lime 17.0 



" t Sulphate of copper 34.0 



I Sulphate of soda 6.0 



7 Muriate of soda 10.0 



( Acetate of lime 0.0 



„ ( Gum 26.0 



" I Sugar 34.0 



" These experiments succeeded nearly equally with 

 other jdauts, as the Mentha piperita and the Scotch Fir. 

 When the roots were cut or removed, the plants absorbed 

 all solutions indiscriminately." 



Then that plants do not retain what is noxious, we 

 have this decisive evidence : — 



" The experiments of Macah-e-Princep have shown that 

 plants made to vegetate with their roots in a weak solu- 

 tion of acetate of lead (Goulard's extract), and then in 

 rain water, yield to the latter all the salt of lead which 

 they had previously absorbed. They return, therefore, 

 to the soil all matters unnecessary to then- existence. 

 Again : when a plant, freely exposed to the atmosphere, 

 rain, and sunshine, is sprinkled with a solution of nitrate 

 of strontia, the salt is absorbed ; but it is again separated 

 by the roots, and removed further from them by every 

 shower of rain which falls upon the soil ; so that at last 

 not a trace ef it is to be found in the plant." — {Dauhcny.) 



If we refer to the results of extensive practice wo have 

 the irresistible evidence of the hundreds of acres of grass 

 produced during many years solely by the aid of house 

 sewage on the Duke of Portland's land near Mansfield. 

 No disease has that grass produced in tho cattle that 

 have consumed it. That liouse sewage put upon a garden 

 near a residence is never offensive we can testify from 

 our own long experience, and certainly the crops pro- 

 duced by its aid never caused typhoid fever, nor any 

 other disease. 



We have tried house-sewage as a manure to Potatoes, 

 Peas, Beans, all tho Cabbageworts, Asparagus, Rhubarb, 

 Sea-kale, and Grass ; and it has yielded us, of all of them, 

 from a light soil resting on chalk, the best crops we have 

 ever grown. 



Om- mode of applying sewago is to soak with it the 

 ground previously to digging, and growing every crop in 

 rows with wide intervals, to pour the sewage as wo deem 

 needful in gutters made with tho hoc between the rows. 



Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, of Waldronhurst, near Croydon, 

 No. 1801.— Vol.. L., OtD Series. 



