222 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Subjects for next meeting — by Prof. Mtipes, " Drainage, and the value 

 city manure," and " Small farms near large cities." 

 The club adjourned. 



H. MEIGS, Secretary. 



February 1, 1859. 



Present — Messrs. President Pell, Dr. Shelton, of Jamaica ; Dr. Holton, 

 Dr. Crowell, Messrs. Bruce, Witt, Pierce, Doughty and his son, John V. 

 Brower and Benjamin Pike, of Jersey ; Kavanach, Field, Burgess, Fuller, 

 Provost, Roberts, Hon. John Gr. Bergen, Adrian Bergen, Pardee, Lawton, 

 Rev. Dr. Adamson, Bowman, Dr. R. T. Underbill, of Croton Point ; Prof. 

 Nash, Wm. B. Leonard, John W. Chambers, Mr. McCarthy, Skidmore, of 

 Long Island ; Stacey, and others — fifty-one members in all. 



President Pell in the chair. Henry Meigs, Secretary. 



Mr. Meigs. — The fact is now established that agriculture, the heretofore 

 most neglected of all human arts, has been subjected to a great modern 

 revolution. The French style an intelligent farmer an Agronome, a Greek 

 word meaning the laiv of land, or the science of land. 



Nature is so bountiful, that man and beast, and insect and fish, all find 

 something to feed upon, in the pleasant lands of the earth, almost without 

 work or talent of any sort. But man, whose dominion was assigned by the 

 Almighty, over all the earth, must use his immortal reason to conquer his 

 lands, from ice to ice from north to south. He lives, therefore, where all 

 out door life is, with a half dozen exceptions, torpid or extinguished. 



ON THE APPLICATION OF SEWER WATER AND OTHER 

 TOWN MANURES TO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIONS. 



Mr. Pell. — Within the city of New York we find many of the streets and 

 houses perfectly filthy, the atmospnere foetid ; disease, small pox, typhus 

 and sundry other epidemics, rife among the people, bringing as a necessary 

 consequence in their train destitution, and the absolute need of not only 

 pecuniary, but medical relief; all attributable to the presence of the very 

 richest materials of production ; the total absence of which, would, in a 

 great degree, restore health, avert the recurrence of disease, and if applied 

 to land in the several districts, not only cheapen food, and increase labor, 

 but promote abundance. As we pass through our streets, the chief seats of 

 insalubrity are indicated to our senses by sickening, depressing, and dead- 

 ening sensations, produced by inhaling air rendered impure by the admix- 

 ture of organic vapoi's arising from decay of vegetable substances, as well 

 as offensive and pungent smells, caused by foul air. 



In these districts the vegetable and animal excreta from houses are dis- 

 charged through drains into sewers, and thence into the rivers, occasioning 

 the entire loss of the manure. In other sections the manure is accumu- 

 lated in and about dwellings, occasioning excessive sickness and mortality, 

 even though the natural climate may be superior. The people in these 



