138 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



like a gas-meter, would enable the company to make their periodical charge. I annex the 

 following statistical account, with which I have been favored by Edwin Chadwick, our greatest 

 authority in such matters : 



The gross daily quantity of water pumped into the metropolis was, in the year 1850, forty- 

 four million gallons. The actual quantity consumed for domestic purposes, or that you could 

 estimate for sewage as containing house refuse, or house-manure in suspension or solution, at 

 times when there is no rain applicable as manure, would not be more than twenty million 

 gallons per diem. I say house-manure, because rain and storm waters bring, as surface wash- 

 ings, dung from the streets, and soot and birds' dung from the roofs of houses. You may 

 judge of the daily quantity visibly by the fact, that forty -five million gallons would bo deli- 

 vered in twenty-four hours by a brook nine feet wide and three feet deep, running at the rate 

 of three feet per second, or a little more than two miles per hour ; and three sewers, of three 

 feet diameter and of a proper fall, will suffice for the removal (for distribution) of the same 

 volume of refuse or soil water. The total weight of this annual supply of water is nearly 

 seventy-two millions of tons. The daily cost of raising the whole supply by engine-power 

 one hundred feet high (for distribution) would be about 25, or 9000 per annum. Sup- 

 posing the supply were equally distributed, i. e. the forty-four millions, it would be about 

 fifty pailsful for each house, and would weigh about thirteen hundredweight. 



Those who doubt the cheapness at which water can be raised may be assured by visiting 

 the Croydon Water-works, where six hundred and fifty thousand gallons are forced to a mile 

 distant, and elevated one hundred and fifty feet, at a cost of thirteen and a half hundred- 

 weight of dust-coal per diem of twenty -four hours. With regard to the mode of conveyance, 

 it appears to me that our railway lines might be availed of to lay down lines of pipes ; but, 

 of course, all such questions would be easily arranged by competent engineering authorities. 

 Perhaps it will be as well to state, that fifteen yards of three-inch iron pipe per acre will be 

 all that is required, or about five and a half hundredweight of iron per acre. This is the 

 quantity on my farm ; I have one hundred and seventy acres piped. The value of London 

 sewage has been variously estimated; but Professor Way has calculated it by its ammonia at 

 two millions sterling. He has made no valuation of the water alone ; I apprehend that fifty 

 millions of gallons daily, or two hundred and twenty-four thousand tons, would have, even 

 when unmixed with manure, a considerable irrigating value. 



In order to ascertain whether this application of sewage will pay the farmer a profit, and 

 leave a sufficient interest for the capital invested by a company, let us calculate seventy-two 

 million tons of sewage, at one penny per ton, would be 300,000. Now, take the pumping 

 or raising this quantity at the exaggerated sum of 50,000 annually, there would remain 

 250,000 as interest on the capital invested, which, at six per cent., would be also the exag- 

 gerated sum of 4,000,000 sterling. 



I have assumed the sum of one penny per ton as representing that which would leave the 

 farmer and landlord a very large profit on their pipe investment. I can confirm this by my 

 own practical experience. But it must be obvious to any one who reasons, that, as one hun- 

 dred tons of water per acre represents a rain fall of twenty-four hours, this alone, without 

 the saturation of manure, must be worth one penny per ton, or 3s. Qd. per acre, and, indeed, 

 in dry weather, for grass crops very much more. As to the quantity required per acre, Mr. 

 Telfer, of Ayr, tells me that he applies five hundred tons of water per Scotch acre at five 

 dressings to his Italian rye-grass, with five hundredweight of guano at each dressing, making 

 a total annual application of twenty-five hundredweight of guano per Scotch acre, (one- 

 fourth larger than the English acre.) This is in a naturally moist climate : therefore, we 

 may estimate the water- absorbing power of the barren sandy wastes in the neighborhood of 

 the metropolis far more considerable. That those wastes would be rendered highly pro- 

 ductive after the application of town-sewage cannot be doubted. 



The experiments of Mr. Wilkins, who grew two crops of hemp and flax in one season, last 

 year, settle the question. Now, if you apply five hundred tons per acre, you will only re- 

 quire one hundred and fifty-two thousand acres to absorb your seventy-six millions of tons. 

 As six hundred and forty acres are a square mile, you would at that rate require two hundred 

 and thirty-seven square miles, or a square area whose diameter would be about fifteen miles. 



