232 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



by stench and effluvia arising from defective drainage. Even cattle are 

 affected, if every drain entering a staMe has not a stink-trap, a sufficient 

 supply of water to cleanse it, careful drainage, ar.d a superior exit for the 

 escape of the vitiated air; these, in nine stables out of ten, are defective, 

 much too small, and untrapped. The effect of emanations of animal and 

 vegetable refuse, as from horses and cattle which are confined in such 

 ill-cleansed, ill-ventilated stables, is first to depress their appetites and 

 general condition, and put them off their feed ; then low fever follows, 

 leading on to various forms of inflammatory attacks and epidemics, which 

 often prove fatal. 



The plain practical questions that I now intend to bring before the club 

 are — 



1. The comparative extent to which town sewage, refuse, and liquid ma- 

 nures are valued. 



2. The modes of application. 



3. The cost and expenses of such application. 



4. The agricultural, sanitary, and financial results, 



5. The facilities for extended application. 



Irrigation with sewage water is carried to a great extent in Milan, by 

 means of a covered canal, known as the Scvese, built by the Romans, and 

 the Navaglio, constructed during the middle ages remains open, and serves 

 for navigation as well as drainage. All the streets of the city have in 

 the centre a subterranean sewer, in brick work, into which the houses 

 discharge liquid materials from the laboratories and water closets, and these 

 are carried by the Sevese into the Naviglio, and then to the Vettabbia, which 

 flows out of the southern part of the city, and, after a course often miles, 

 discharges itself into the river Lambro, fertilizing prodigiously a great ex- 

 tent of meadow land, which the fertilizing matter borne by these several 

 waters raises the surface in such a manner, that the deposit has to be re- 

 moved frequently by the neighboring agriculturists as a fertilizer to pre- 

 serve the level of irrigation. These meadows are mowed in November, 

 January, March and April, for stable feeding ; and in September they fur- 

 nish an abundant pasture for cattle until the beginning of winter irriga- 

 tion. 



In Wiltshire, England, in the vicinity of Salisbury, along the valley of 

 the river Willy to beyond the town of Warminster, a distance of twenty- 

 two miles, is an almost continuous series of meadows irrigated with water 

 and town refuse ; the whole area is three thousand acres. These meadows 

 are watered seven days and Tiights in succession, and then the water is 

 turned off for the same length of time, during winter. In spring it is 

 turned four days on and four oft' ; in summer three days on and six off. 

 The whole of these meadows, therefore, during half the year, form one large 

 evaporating surface, as much as would be the case if the whole area con- 

 stituted an immense lake. Even when the water is off, the ground is so 

 saturated that the evaporation still goes on. 



