656 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 
plant by which sewage has hitherto been chiefly utilized, requires a 
moist, cold atmosphere, as well as a well-fed, cool, moist soil, to ensure 
a luxuriant succulence of growth. The Beddington meadows, which 
receive the waste of Croydon, and which in May presented such a 
wonderful coat of grass as the result of irrigation—30 inches high 
and as thick as it could stand, and weighing 12 or 14 tons per acre— 
have not yielded by any means so well at their second and third cuts 
this summer, notwithstanding the flood of filthy water which at intervals 
has been poured over them. The tendency of the plant to form its 
seed spike seems irresistible in hot, dry weather, however the growth 
of grass may be urged by irrigation of the soil; and a first cut, of 10 
to 14 tons per acre, is followed by one of 7 or 8, and that by one of 4 
or 5 tons in a hot July or August. This must be taken into their 
calculations by those who propose to utilize the sewage of London on 
the low-lying lands of Kent and Essex, two of the driest counties in 
the island. 
The drought has produced a protest from Mr. Bailey Denton, 
C.E., in the form of a memorial to Sir George Grey, on the water 
economy of the country, and on the better uses of our rainfall. 
Mr. Denton proposes that agricultural proceedings with reference to 
that matter should be made subject to some central control. Thirty 
inches of rain, or thereabouts, fall annually in this island. This wets 
its surface, which dries again and sends back”so much into the air. 
It finds its way, by various surface channels, runnels, brooks, rivulets, 
and rivers, to the sea. It sinks through its surface to various depths, 
taking always the path of least resistance to that downward passage 
which gravity imposes, until at length the passage of least resistance 
leads to the re-appearance of this portion of the rainfall in springs at 
various points below that where it sank into the ground. Now, of 
these two latter portions of the rainfall, various uses are made. They 
swell our rivers, which are thus along many miles of their course made 
available as carriers ; they fill our muill-streams, and their weight is 
thus turned to account as power ; they provide drink for our live-stock 
and our population, and they feed our plants. But the surface on 
which the rain-water falls is covered with plants. The cultivator of 
these plants is thus the first owner of this water, and he is more and 
more awakening to the immense value of this property, and to the 
greatly enhanced services which, if properly directed, it can render to 
him as a grower of these plants. Guided by the better knowledge of this 
subject which now prevails, every man, either the owner or the hirer of 
this surface, is dealing with the water which falls upon it for his own 
exclusive benefit. Hither each estate by itself, or it may be even each 
field by itself, is so drained that the rain passes through the soil and 
subsoil for use, instead of over its surface to waste; and after being 
made useful as a feeder of the plants grown in and on the soil, it is 
thereafter provided with as easy and as speedy an exit as possible. 
The field or the estate is drained, and thereafter the water, bemg done 
with, is dismissed. Now, even as regards an estate, and still more as 
regards a province or a district, there is room for the use of water 
after it has done its duty as feeder of the plants. It is applicable as 
