192 president's address — section J. 



before tliey copy the practice of Europe, wliicli, enjoying an 

 abundant rainfall, has never felt the necessity for irrigation, 

 and has had abundant stores of fossil manure to draw upon. 

 The fact that it often does not pay to put sewage on the land 

 is not sufficient justification for wasting it, and the public, as 

 well as engineers, should strain a point in urging that the 

 sewage of towns be applied to irrigate land wherever 

 possible. 



The productiveness of land irrigated with sewage is a 

 remarkable fact, and the double pui'pose is served of cleansing 

 the cities and feeding the people. Many persons recoil from 

 the idea of being fed by the produce of sewage filth, but their 

 prejudice is groundless, or is founded on a misapprehension 

 of the functions of growth in plants, and a wrong interpreta- 

 tion of the conditions under which plant life exists on the 

 earth. No plant can continue long to grow unless the matter 

 which it has produced be given back to it, and it is an 

 essential condition of the life of plants that the dead waste 

 matter of plants and animals be restored to the soil. Sewage 

 irrigation does this in a fairly efficient manner, and it is 

 essentially suitable to a dry hot climate like Austi'alia. 



Sewage irrigation is, however, not so important as water 

 irrigation, and 1 foresee for engineers a noble task in pro- 

 viding irrigation for Australia, a task second in importance to 

 none of the engineering works hitherto undertaken. Irriga- 

 tion will feed and nourish the people and beautify the land ; 

 in many districts it will transform the countiy, changing its 

 aspect from that of Arabian deserts to that of the Vegas of 

 Malaga and Seville in the days of the Saracens ; it will 

 make the country life of the peasant and farmer pleasant, 

 healthy, and profitable, which, under present conditions, is 

 scarcely possible ; it will cover the country with villages sur- 

 rounded with groves, orchards, and gardens, and turn the 

 burning heat on a naked land into the perfumed and luxurious 

 warmth that delights the traveller in the West India Islands. 

 This must not be taken as an idle dream ; irrigation has done 

 it for many countries and will do it for Australia if the people 

 have confidence in it and in her engineers. Irrigation is new 

 to us, but the art is as old as the hills, and I hope the rising- 

 school of engineers in these colonies may yet reproduce some 

 of the marvels of the ancients; they must not slavishly 

 imitate the humble works of modern times, but acknowledge 

 frankly that the old irrigators were our masters in this branch 

 of engineering. 



