126 



Sewage Manure. 



7oL. XIT. 



Sewage flianure, 



In reference to its use for Agricultural 

 purposes. 



There is no subject, perhaps, within the 

 memory of man, connected with the proceed- 

 ings of the British leoislature, that has de- 

 veloped more important matter fitr national 

 reflection and practical operation, than the 

 facts elicited by the Health of Towns' Com- 

 mission — an inquiry which, while it has made 

 us acquainted with the most appalling evi- 

 dence of the diseases of humanity consequent 

 upon the absence of municipal precautions, 

 has also pointed out the means by which the 

 calamity may be in future permanently avert- 

 ed ; those means, too, having not only the 

 advantage of eradicating what has been 

 hitherto so fatally noxious to human health, 

 but at the same time — as has been more ob- 

 viously shown by a subsequent inquiry — of 

 providing a new agent for augmenting the 

 productions essential to the sustentation of 

 man. In a word, more commodious and san- 

 atory dwellings for the labouring poor, im- 

 proved ventilation, and an extended system 

 of sewag-e, have been the judicious recom- 

 mendations of these respective investiga- 

 tions. 



It is in reference to the latter — namely, 

 sewage, and its invaluable properties for hus- 

 bandry purposes — that a few useful hints may 

 be brought under the notice of agriculturists; 

 for at no period could they be more appropri- 

 ately macie known than the present, when 

 the peculiar position of the British farmer, 

 and the direful necessities of millions — 

 through a visitation of Providence, — alike 

 claim the sympathy and co-operative sug- 

 gestions of the community at large. 



It is not a little remarkable that while the 

 system of agriculture of this island is admit- 

 ted to be transcendently superior to that of 

 any other country, one of the most valuable 

 agencies for stimulating the produce of the 

 soil should have been at all times so little 

 regarded by the English cultivator. Tlie 

 collection of manure in other countries, and 

 that too in a manner totally different from 

 anything ever adopted in this country, has 

 Tor ages constituted a prevalent and most 

 lucrative pursuit. In China, for instance, 

 its collection is an object of so much atten- 

 tion that a prodigious number of old men, 

 women, and children are, we are told, con- 

 stantly employed about the streets, public 

 roads, and banks of canals and rivers, with 

 baskets lied before them, and holding in 

 their hands wooden rakes to pick up the 

 dung of animals, and offal of any kind that 

 may answer the purpose of manure. In va- 

 rious parts of a farm, and near the paths and 



roads, large earthen vessels are buried to the 

 edge in the ground for the acconmiodation of 

 the labourer or passenger who may have oc- 

 casion to use them. In small retiring-houses, 

 built also upon the brink of the roads, and 

 in the neighbourhood of villages, reservoirs 

 are constructed of compact materials, to pre- 

 vent the absorption of whatever they receive. 

 Such a value, in short, is set upon the prin- 

 cipal ingredient called tn-feu — night soil — 

 for manure, that the oldest and most helpless 

 persons are not deemed wholly useless to the 

 family by which they are supported. 



In Belgium, as in China, manure is also 

 an article of trade. The towns let the 

 cleaning of the streets and public retiring 

 places ^t great rents. In every town, tra- 

 vellers tell us, there are sworn brokers e.\- 

 pressly for the purpose of valuing night-soil, 

 the price of the different manures varying 

 from five to twenty-four francs the cart-load 

 of 1.500 lbs. The most efficient applications 

 of the town manure in that country are in 

 the liquid form ; it is there applied, not by a 

 water-cart, but by hand labour: a man car- 

 ries on his back a dossier, from which he 

 sheds it out and distributes it. 



In Paris the very stuff which in London 

 washes through the streets and under the 

 streets of London into the Thames, is care- 

 fully collected. At Meurice's Hotel, early 

 in the morning, may be seen some fitly or 

 sixty large quarter-casks rolled up out of 

 the subterraneous part of that establishment, 

 containing the water of the water-closets, 

 and the water from washing, all of which is 

 sent into the country, and "people — says the 

 conductor of that house — are glad to fetch it 

 away." While in the British metropolis it 

 is a well ascertained fact, so sliohtly is such 

 an invaluable commodity appreciated, that 

 "three loads a day of dung are dropped in 

 Regent street, between the Quadrant and 

 Oxford-street! and that the amount of actual 

 solid fertilizing manure, deprived of all its 

 liquid diluting substances, that goes into the 

 Thames, is, from the different sewers, actu- 

 ally 725,000 tons a year!" In short, the 

 whole of the towns on the continent make 

 an annual revenue by the cleaning out of 

 cesspools. 



To a limited extent, the use of sewage 

 water as an efficacious manure has been 

 availed of by the farmers in this country, 

 particularly in .Scotland. At Stirling, the 

 well known Mr. Smith, of Deanston, not 

 very long since instituted a set of experi- 

 ments which produced the most satisfactory 

 results. Some land was laid out in portions, 

 in rather a sandy loamy soil. First, a divis- 

 ion was manured with farm dung and ashes 

 mixed, at the rate of twelve tons per acre, 



