500 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION H. 



The removal of refuse matter becoming offensive — how is this 

 to be done ? Can we learn anything from the Aborigines 1 How do 

 they accomplish such work 1 Not by scavenging certainly, but by 

 a far more efl'ective method, and when their camp in a few days 

 becomes foul, they pack up all their valuables and set up shelters 

 on a new site where there are neither fleas nor bad smells to 

 trouble them. This method is not convenient to a white man 

 who has spent money and labour on his house and allotment, but 

 physicians do not doubt the value of travel, and drive people from 

 their insanitary homes by prescribing change of air. The local 

 features of the residential site wil" detemnine how the cleanliness 

 of the place is to be maintained, as all towns cannot have a water- 

 closet system. Adelaide the first to adopt this luxury, is built on 

 rising ground from which water gravitates without engineering 

 difilculty ; so also in Sydney, and the public farms of these places 

 are most interesting, though not free from bad smells, and the 

 study of cultivation with sewage may under wise direction be 

 carried out so as to be a guide to irrigating science in the country 

 at large. The simple form of the distribution in the Botany farm 

 under the management of Mr. Oxley, deserves particular attention 

 as tending to solve one of the chief difiiculties. In both Ade- 

 laide and Sydney the area of land under irrigation appears so far 

 too limited for the fertilising element, and additional water supply 

 is desirable. At Botany, the pumping appliances formerly used 

 to supply Sydney with drinking water, could be used to supply 

 additional water to dikite the sewage, and so more area could be 

 laid under crops. The consideration of what plants could be pro- 

 fitably grown on the sewage-irrigated areas is of some importance, 

 and if such works do not promise to be profitable farms in a 

 pecuniary way the interest in the development languishes. To 

 this end botanists and horticulturists should visit the farms and 

 make suggestions for expei'iments. Sydney has a difterent 

 climate from Adelaide, and local knowledge of plant life will be 

 important information. The cultivation of Sorglitmn halepense, a 

 coarse wild grass that grows on the banks of the Brisbane River 

 and elsewhere in Queensland yields immense quantities of fodder, 

 and is highly spoken of by Mr. Colebatch, the manager of the 

 Adelaide farm. I have suggested to him the importance of 

 making trials with the foliage that grows on the canes of Aruyido 

 donax, as cattle might be allowed to crop ofi'the blades of grass for 

 themselves. This grass is much relished by horses and cattle in 

 Queensland during winter, and the canes browsed upon by the 

 animals soon throw out a fresh development of leaves. I believe 

 that when planted in suitable places near water, it will yield 

 more fodder than anything so far introduced. Rice too, being an 

 aquatic grass, may prove valuable on the sewage areas as a fairly 

 good yield of grain can be collected from rich alluvial flats in 

 Queensland coast country during the rainy season without special 

 irrigation. Where it is easy to carry sewers into deep sea, 



