On the Manuring of Grass Land. 249 



proved, and if it do not pay there is an end of the matter. 

 Fanners and landowners cannot affoi'd to sacrifice their incomes 

 to crotchets, nor, in our densely peopled country, can we spare the 

 produce of a single acre of available land. The Craigentinny 

 meadows near Edinburgh afford a splendid instance of success due 

 entirely to a judicious application of sewage, and wherever the 

 same conditions obtain sewatje should be applied in like manner. 

 A ready and cheap vend for dairy produce, the means of applying 

 the sewage by gravity, or at most by one pumping (as on some 

 of the Edinburgh land), without any outlay for costly apparatus of 

 distribution, and above all porosity and declivity of soil adequate 

 for the removal of surplus water, are conditions to be fu filled 

 before a reasonable expectation of profit can be entertained. 

 Where these meet, the farmer will do well to try a few acres, 

 and extend his breadth of sewage irrigation accordingly as he finds 

 it pay. It is far better tliat the sewage of towns should run to 

 waste into the ocean, than that our cultivators should apply it to 

 the land and lose money by the application. 



Of course I know what imaginative theorists will say to this, 

 but after reading all their arguments (and sophisms too), and 

 weighing against them the sober truths of experience and analysis, 

 I can come to no other conclusion. 



But may not the farmer irrigate with his own home-made 

 liquid manure? Where he has command of water andean do 

 it without a constant charge for labour he may, but otherwise I 

 entirely concur in the sentiment of one of our leading agricultu- 

 rists : " I am more and more averse to liquid manure : the labour 

 is endless." 



Let the liquid manure be mixed with soil, finely sifted ashes, 

 and such other material as the farmer can command, and the 

 compost applied liberally to the grass of the farm, and the profit 

 thus derived will far exceed that to be made by the costly plans 

 which have recently been proposed for adoption. 



I must observe, however, that the most prolific source of grass 

 manure is human excreta, now expensively wasted in town sewage. 

 Large sums of money are now expended to enable us to waste 

 what may be economised with advantage in every way. The 

 present absurd water-carriage of excreta must be abandoned, and 

 sewers employed for their legitimate purpose, viz., to carry away 

 waste water to its natural receptacle the river. Moveable boxes 

 should be attached to every house, and removed weekly in 

 summer, fortnightly in winter. A cistern filled with dry pounded 

 clay would be placed overhead, and a simple mechanical contri- 

 vance would thro\v down a measured quantity of this every time 

 the handle was raised as water is now let down a closet. Nature's 

 deodorizer and disinfectant would prevent the escape of injurious 



