Jane 18, 1B67. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



409 



so formed as to graep the glass tightly. Each bar is driven 

 2 feet into the earth, and they are about 19 inches one from 

 the other, so as to form a six-cornered figure, giving two sheets 

 of glass 21 inches wide to each Vine. 



In order t9 prevent the edges of the glass being too much 

 pressed on by the glass above, and also to prevent the sheets 

 being broken when the whole edifice is bound tightly by the 

 copper wire, a very simple contrivance has been adopted — an 

 iron bar of the same thickness as the glass, one-fourth of an 

 inch wide, and one- eighth of an inch longer than the width of 

 the glass, is forced down the grooves on to the glass. The 

 copper wire being threaded through the wooden bars over the 

 iron ones, is then drawn tight, and the structure becomes quite 

 firm ; but the cone is not fixed until aU the glass has been in- 

 serted in the grooves. Instead of the iron bar being inserted on 

 the last sheet of glass, a wooden one, 2 inches wide, makes a better 

 finish. I have thus a firmly-erected, glass, six-cornered tube, 

 10 feet in height, and about 3 feet 9 inches in diameter, a light 

 frame, in which four sheets of glass are inserted, forming the 

 door. As there is no draught the heat accumulates to a great 

 extent during the day. In one of these structures with slate at 

 the north side, a thermometer (shaded) marked 99' Fahr. 



These vineries are now being made of a conical form, on the 

 same simple principle, when, perhaps, it may be found neces- 

 sary to give air below. The heat given ofl from the earth at 

 uight, can be retained by having the wooden bars double- 

 grooved and double-glazed, a stratum of motionless air being 

 then enclosed. This extra expense would not exceed £1 10s. 



The structure which I have endeavoured to describe would 

 cost about £2 2.<. This, for three Vines, is rather different 

 from the £5 now charged for a ground vinery holding only one 

 Vine, an expenditure never contemplated by the originator, and 

 one which must be a complete obstacle to his system of growing 

 Grapes for the million. I will shortly describe a structure made 

 of indestructible materials, and costing only 14s. — A Lookee-on. 



TOWN SEWAGE.* 



The hook upon sewage by Mr. Krepp has been laboriously 

 written, contains a description of almost all that has ever been 

 attempted for the disposal of town sewage, and is in reality 

 composed to advocate the system propounded by a Captain 

 Liemnr — a plan which in this work is elaborately described 

 and illustrated by various engravings. 



It was said of the critic Uennis that he was the fairest of 

 critics, for he industriously pointed out what other poets should 

 do in his reviews, and showed them what they should not do 

 by his own poems. This remark well applies to the work 

 before us. We here find an account of the chief sanitary 

 attempts from Dent, xxiii. 13 to the present day— till Mr. 

 Krepp arrives at his climax (p. 205), that " Captain Liernur's 

 Engineering Agency is at 2, Royal Exchange Buildings, Lon- 

 don, E.G." 



Of that plan, which consists in the separation of human 

 excreta from other sewage and its removal by carriages, it is 

 needless to speak ; no local board of health will ever dream 

 of adopting so absurd, so impracticable a process. The far 

 greater number of sanitary schemers forget that the removal 

 of human excreta from populous places is only a portion of the 

 great objects to be obtained by boards of health. Such persons 

 do not consider — 1st, that a more copious supply of water, which 

 is in almost all towns required, leads to an increase in the 

 amount of sewage — this must be provided for by sewers ; 2nd, that 

 the rainfall must also be conducted into the drains, and this rain 

 water, which is rendered impure by the washings of the streets 

 and houses, must also be provided for — it becomes a weak 

 liquid manure, containing, besides other foreign matters, am- 

 monia, and, in the case of granite-formed ways, a considerable 

 portion of potash. This impure liquid must not be conveyed 

 into the adjoining stream ; it can only be sufliciently purified 

 for its admission into a river by being previously employed in 

 irrigation. If, therefore, it were practicable to separate the 

 excreta from the other matters of town sewage, this would 

 not obviate the necessity for sewers. They must still be 

 constructed, and must also be regularly flushed by water. 

 These requirements must all be considered by the sanitary 

 improver. By separating the excreta from the other portions 

 of town sewage as proposed by Captain Liernur, you would 



* "The SewaRe QiieBtion : Being a General Review of all Systems and 

 Uethods. By Frederick C. Krepp." Pp. 305, royal octavo. London, 

 Iiosgmana &, Co. Vmal. 



add largely to the expense, and add to the discomfort of the 

 inhabitants. 



As it has been observed in another place, such sanitary diffi- 

 culties commence as soon as men begin to dwell in fixed habi- 

 tations. As long as they live a wandering life they have little 

 need to regard the refuse matters of their families, since they 

 find it easy to often remove their tents to a fresh locality. 

 When, however, men began to congregate, a different state of 

 affairs arose. Of course the most primitive mode of disposing 

 of such refuse matters was by throwing them into the street, a 

 practice that to a very late period was adopted in some of our 

 cities, a plan even yet followed in many of the plague-haunted 

 cities of the East. 



After a time, as towns increased in size, this disgusting 

 practice gradually began to be superseded by another bad sys- 

 tem. Cesspools were introduced. And now another very in- 

 jurious sanitary effect was very slowly discovered. These cess- 

 pools could only be useful by being constructed in a porous 

 soil, and lined with bricks without cement, so that the sewage 

 daily poured into them from the houses could soak away into 

 the soil. The result was, that the sewage very speedily de- 

 scended into the earth until it reached the water-bearing 

 stratum, from which the house-well obtained its water. Thug 

 the water used for domestic purposes became tainted, and was 

 in fact only a very diluted filtered sewage. The earth through 

 which that sewage flowed in its way to the well (as was then 

 but very little understood), merely removed the mechanically 

 suspended matter, but not the chemically combined substances 

 of the foul stream. 



Then came the period, about a quarl-er of a century only 

 since, when these facts were vigorously explained to the public 

 at large. Long before this time, however, sewers had been 

 constructed, even as early as the ages of imperial Rome ; but 

 they were only partially used by the citizens, were constructed 

 upon very erroneous principles, and emptied their noxious 

 streams into the adjoining river, such as the Tiber, or the 

 Thames. 



Then came the days of the Public Health Act in 1848, when 

 good sanitary principles began to be better understood. Sewers 

 of a better character were then made ; the sewage of various 

 towns was completed ; the sewage of the district was conducted 

 to a common outfall, and that point was too certain to be at 

 the bank of the adjoining stream. A new and very important 

 difficulty now presented itself : the large mass of sewage thus 

 for the first time collected and poured into the river rendered 

 the stream too noxious to be endured by those dwelling on its 

 banks. Courts of Equity were, therefore, speedily applied to ; 

 injunctions were granted, and in consequence boards of health 

 were compelled to try and abate the nuisance. Here other 

 mistakes were speedily made by those who were honestly en- 

 deavouring to benefit their fellow-creatures. It was deemed 

 possible to deodorise the sewage before it reached the river. A 

 small flight of schemers soon made their appearance, each 

 with a plausible plan. These comprehended every possible 

 variety of modes — settling tanks, filtering machines, preci- 

 pitants, deodorisers, and combinations of two or three of these. 

 The fate of these has been uniform : they have been and wiU 

 be all failui'es. They neither accomplished the object sought to 

 be obtained, nor, if they had done so, would they have been 

 otherwise than a costly and needless expense to the inhabitants 

 of the sewered districts, to say nothing of the utter waste of 

 fertilising matter which they all involve. Several of these 

 plans were carefully tried at the town of Croydon ; but after 

 every effort had been made, recourse was had to the employ- 

 ment of the sewage in irrigation. This plan, first adopted by 

 the Local Board of that town, is now being successfully adopted 

 by other populous places. It possesses the great advantages of 

 being not only effectual, but of more than paying its necessary 

 expenses. 



It is, indeed, idle to assert that the use of sewage in grass 

 irrigation is profitless ; for when we know that the fields of 

 Edinburgh let for £25 to £30 per acre, that the four hundred 

 acres of sandy land at Mansfield (once let at 2s. an acre), have 

 been converted by the Portland family into the richest grass 

 land in Nottinghamshire by watering it with the sewage of 

 Mansfield ; when we further learn that the sewage-irrigated 

 alluvial soil of Croydon produces annually at least thirty tons 

 of grass, and tnat thirty-six acres of land on the London basin 

 clay at Norwood, in the same district, yield a still larger amount 

 of grass, it is useless to deny the fact that the irrigation system 

 is successful and profitable. In adopting that system the error 

 mast be carefully avoided of applying the aenaga to the land 



