Toion Sewage. 237 



stances, he never found any benefit unless it were put on the land in 

 wet weather. 



Mr. Blackburn said his experience with regard to liquid farmyard- 

 manure was entirely opposed to that of Mr. Fawcett. He had found 

 that the warmer the weather was when it was applied, the greater was 

 the amount of the crop. He had selected such grasses as were most 

 suited for the application of liquid manui-e ; as regarded warm 

 weather, it was a mere question of dilution. 



Mr. Fawcett observed that he had been speaking of ordinary mea- 

 dow-grasses. 



Mr. Blackburn said ordinary meadow-grasses did not appear to him 

 adapted for irrigation, on account of the enormous waste. They do 

 not grow upright, and consequently the lower leaves are excluded from 

 the air, and became yellow; whereas, upright-growing grasses allow 

 the air to get underneath. In Mr. Scott's distribution of sewage at 

 Wimbledon by hose and jet, the mode he adopted of driving it through 

 the air in a thin jet would be the most effectual means of creating smell, 

 wasting the ammonia, and losing power. He woidd be glad to hear 

 from Mr. Lawes whether the value of the sewage rises as the pro- 

 portion of water diminishes. 



Mr. Lawes : Yes. 



Mr. Blackburn : If a given quantity of sewage contained only 

 twenty tons of water, would it bo three times as valuable as if it con- 

 tained sixty ? 



Mr. Lawes : More than that. 



Mr. Blackburn said, that being so, it would be well for towns to 

 take some measure for preventing the present excessive waste of water, 

 and to turn all the surface water and subsoil drainage from the sewers 

 into the natural channels. 



Mr. Lawes : That is a question for the towns, not for agriculturists. 



On the motion of Lord Feversham, seconded by Mr. Scott, a vote of 

 thanks was given to Mr. Lawes for his lecture. 



Mr. Lawes, after acknowledging the vote, proceeded to reply briefly 

 to some of the remarks made in the course of the discussion. He said : 

 Of course, in discussing the subject of sewage, they must take the 

 sewage as they found it, and also assume that it was to be used con- 

 tinuously, summer and winter, day and night. Under other circum- 

 stances they might put a totally different value upon it. In the case 

 of water-meadows — a subject referred to by Mr. Acland — there ^^'as a 

 clear liquid ; but if they analysed it, they would find the kind of in- 

 gredients which were beneficial to jilants. One gentleman seemed to 

 think that some day there would bo found some means of using sewage 

 more profitably on arable land. It had been tried and tried and tried, 

 without any good residt. Lord Essex, after using it largely upon 

 arable land, had ceased to use it. Lord Robert Montagu and other 

 gentlemen had spent a good deal of time in declaring, before the Society 

 of Arts, that the Eugby experiments were a failure. It was all very 

 well to say that ; but he could affirm that the produce obtained at 

 Rugby from a given amount of sewage was very much greater than that 

 obtained at Edinbui'gh. He was satisfied that the produce from 1000 



