AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 22Y 



Liquid manure or sewage water may be applied to the land when it is 

 fallow, with the certainty of perfect incorporation, and that the deposit will 

 be available for the following crop, and at any time during the growth of 

 vegetation it will be cumulative, and increase the fertility of the soil con- 

 tinually. Such has been the case at Edinburgh, Milan, and many other 

 places, where liquid manure has been applied scientifically, always pro- 

 ducing a superabundance of crops, which has continued for fifty years with- 

 out any exhaustion of soil or deterioration of the herbage. The average 

 yield at Edinburgh has been four full crops a year of grass, eighteen inches 

 high, and the collective weight cut amounted to eighty tons per acre, and 

 with all cruciferous and leguminous plants, fruits, &c., heavier and more 

 rapid crops have been obtained by liquid manure than by any other. 



I once applied dilute sewage water to wheat ; the result was so great a 

 weight of grain, that the straw could not sustain it, and the crop lodged. 

 Tha following season I macerated wheat straw in a liquid, in one experi- 

 ment, and in another used a soluble silicate, both results were most satis- 

 factory. The miscellaneous nature of town sewage is more favorable to 

 vegetable production than any other manure. 



The sanatary results of collecting, removing and applying New York city 



manure, appears — 



1. That it is far better to submit to the entire loss as manure, of the 

 ordure, animal and vegetable refuse, than permit it to be retained for remo- 

 val at some remote period, and during the intervening time to create nox- 

 ious impurities, amidst a thickly populated district. 



2. That there have not been any disinfectants invented as satisfactory 

 preventives ; those known are so expensive, that they exceed the cost of 

 immediate removal of all offensive substances. 



3. That it is the first condition of salubrity, that all town manures should 

 be at once taken from habitations, and that the object can Le most econom- 

 ically eifected by being removed in water. 



4. That it would be of less injury to the health of the public, to use our 

 magnificent rivers as great sewers, than to permit the refuse to remain un- 

 derneath our habitations. 



5. That manure applied to the surface of land by irrigation is of less 

 injury than would be the application of manure as top dressing. 



6. That the necessity of exposure can be prevented by conveying sewer 

 water in close impermeable underground pipes, and by its distributioi; 

 through the medium of gravitation or steam power. 



As agricultural results — 



1. That the application of city sewage has produced finer crops than 

 any other species of manure ; and that a four fold yield of grass above the 

 ordinary growth, on like soils, has been maintained for fifty years, by means 

 of the sewer manure of Milan and Edinburgh. 



2. That an equal fertility by the application of liquified farm manures 

 has been obtained by a similar application. 



