Mk. Smith on Sewage Water of Towns. 75 



the whole year in distributing the manure, and go on in wet weather as well 

 as in dry. Mr. Harvey has lately extended his system of pipes, and has 

 erected a twelve-horse engine, which is more than master of the work. 

 The Sewage Manure Company of London, which obtained Acts in 1846 

 and 1847, for taking a portion of the sewage water of Westminster, has, 

 after much untoward obstruction and delay, got to work with a thirty- 

 horse engine, and is now distributing the liquid in several of the market 

 gardens at Fulham, and upon meadow land in the neighbourhood, with 

 most satisfactory results. The Company receives £3 10s. for the season's 

 watering of the garden ground, and £2 for that of the meadow land. 

 The results in growing lettuce have been very extraordinary, a market 

 gardener admitting that he had sold the lettuce from an acre of land, so 

 watered, fourteen days earlier than that from some land which had not 

 been watered, and that the pecuniary result had been £25 per acre more. 

 The operations of the Company are going forward, and in another season 

 the value of liquid sewage manure will be fully demonstrated. The water 

 at present applied by the London Company is very much diluted, and has 

 very little smell, and being immediately absorbed by the ground, all oifence 

 is avoided. It was at fii-st thought by the engineer of the Company that 

 it would be necessary to employ their own servants to make the distribu- 

 tion ; but it has been found in practice that the men, women, and boys 

 who are usually employed about gardens are quite competent to the work 

 under the direction of the master gardener, so that the whole matter is, 

 in the meantime, left in his hands, to use the liquid as he thinks most 

 fitting. It has been objected by some that the distribution of the sewage 

 water would generate miasma all over the country, to which it may be 

 replied that the matter taken from the sewers being in a fresh condition, 

 and before it has had time to pass into any extensive decomposition, and 

 being in itself much diluted with water to facilitate its conveyance and 

 distribution, and being thrown over an extensive absorbing surface, with 

 a great area of atmosphere, any poisonous matter that may emanate from 

 it will be so diluted that it cannot affect the health of man or beast. It 

 is impossible, with present information, to determine what may ultimately 

 be the profit derivable to any community from this source ; but taking 

 what data we have from scientific inquiries, as well as that from the prac- 

 tical experience which has been worked out, it does not seem extravagant 

 to anticipate a free yearly income of one pound for each individual of the 

 community. But to render tiie estimate safe, in the first instance it may 

 be made at ten shillings, which would afford to the city of Glasgow an 

 income of at least a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which would put 

 it in the power of the public authorities to root out by degrees all the 

 narrow and unwholesome lanes and the wretched dwellings, which arc a 

 disgrace to the present age, and to carry on continuously the progressive 

 improvement of the city. It has been suggested by many that customers 

 will not be found for the manure in this condition to so great an extent ; 

 but it nuist l)c obvious to every intelligent agriculturist who takes the 



