Chapple. — On the Disxiosal of Seiuage. 



523 



Speaking generally, sewage farming does not pay as an 

 agricultural enterprise, and authorities are unanimous in the 

 opinion that if the farming operations clear expenses, or yield a 

 small profit, this is all any local body is justified in expecting, 

 and this only when the local conditions are favourable. In 

 estimating the profit and loss of sewage farms, rent, in the 

 shape of interest upon the capital outlay, must be left out of 

 account. If this item be taken into the estimate the figures 

 show an enormous loss in the working of most sewage 

 farms. 



Dr. Corfield, in his work on the treatment and utilisa,tion 

 of sewage, comes to the following conclusions in reference to 

 broad irrigation : " (1.) That by careful and well-conducted 

 sewage irrigation (especially if combined with a filtration 

 area) the purification of the whole liquid refuse of a town is 

 practically perfect, and has been insured in cases where it 

 was not at all the object of the agriculturist ; and that it is 

 the only process known by which that purification can be 

 effected on a large or small scale. (2.) That perfectly worth- 

 less land — blowing sea-sand, for instance — can be made in 

 this way to support large and valuable crops. (3.) That the 

 quantity per acre of all crops obtained from even the best land 

 is enormously increased. (4.) That ifc reduces to a great 

 extent, or renders entirely unnecessary, the usual amount of 

 artificial manures of all kinds by supplying a manure especially 

 adapted, from its complex constitution, for the nourishment of 

 crops ; supplying it moreover in a state of solution — that is to 

 say, in the most readily-absorbable condition ; and supplying 

 at the same time that most necessary aid to vegetation — 

 water, which often converts what would otherwise have been 



* 525 acres. 



t Plus cost of land. 



