128 



Sewage Manure. 



Vol. XII. 



tank; but I have from time to time disco- 

 vered llie value of the urine to be so great 

 that I have altered my mode of drainage, to 

 catch more forcibly all its power with it; 

 because the urine contains various descrip- 

 tions of food, the life-restoring principle, 

 which is the ammonia. Ammonia revives 

 us when we have lost blood, and it does the 

 same to the plant. The salt is the life-sus- 

 taining principle, and we lose both these 

 when we allow the straw, which contains 

 lime, to evaporate the liquid. I have en- 

 deavoured, as I have discovered the value 

 of urine as gold among the metals, to catch 

 it immediately it falls, and catch the whole 

 of it with all its power." Mr. D. added, 

 that in his stables each horse would produce 

 three gallons of urine in a day, and eleven 

 gallons of urine he deemed sufficient to ma- 

 nure one acre of grass. 



For the irrigation of meadows sewage 

 manure has also been applied with similar 

 efficacy. Mr. Magnay, a farmer and land 

 agent in Yorkshire, has practised the use of 

 sewer water extensively in irrigation, and 

 has laid out considerable tracts of land in 

 Cumberland for that purpose. " My atten- 

 tion," he says, "was first drawn to the sub- 

 ject from the circumstance of a great quan- 

 tity of water flowing through a village which 

 I considered of value: I applied it to about 

 twenty acres of meadow, which I increased 

 to four-fifths of the produce which had been 

 previously obtained from it. The most ad- 

 vantageous way of applying it was by a 

 level gutter, laying it out in levels so as to 

 flow over all points of the level alike, pass- 

 ing over the plane at a distance, of about 

 twenty-one yards, and the re-collecting it 

 and carrying it to a further level down 

 again." 



We believe one of our most intelligent 

 and experienced Essex farmers, Mr. Baker, 

 of Writtle, entertains doubts as to the pre- 

 ference of liquid manure over solid manure, 

 by reason of the expense of carriage, if con- 

 veyed any distance by water-carts. As this 

 opinion mny probably be held by others, it 

 may be useful to give the results of Mr. 

 Edwin Chadwick's inquiries, at home and 

 abroad, into the applications of liquid ma- 

 nures: 



"I obtained," says Mr. C, "an account of 

 the irrigations with the refuse of Milan — 

 which is given in the Report of the Health 

 of Towns' Commissioners, — and in company 

 with Dr. Arnott I visited the irrigated mea- 

 dows near Edinburgh. I also visited the 

 Clipstone water-meadows, formed by the 

 Duke of Portland, near the town of Mans- 

 field. From the information collected in 

 this stage of the inquiry, I conceived the 



conclusi?)n established, that there are no 

 means of applying manure so cheaply and 

 productively as in the liquid form. Some 

 inquiries as to the expense of cleansing 

 streets by watering by the hose, as at Phila'- 

 delphia, v/here they have a constant supply 

 of water, instead of by the watering-cart, 

 showed that two men, when pipes were pro- 

 perly fixed, might water an extent of street 

 equal to nearly twenty acres per diem. It 

 suggested itself to me that this instrument 

 might be made the means of achieving what 

 was wanted for the distribution of liquid ma- 

 nures. In the summej; of 1842 I was staying 

 with a friend— Mr. Thomson, of Clitheroe, 

 where Dr. Lyon Playfair was also staying. 

 Mr. Thomson has extensive print-works, 

 where he employs about 1,000 persons, and 

 from the works has much liquid manure. I 

 then advised the application of this manure 

 by means of the hose. So far as I am aware, 

 this was the first suggestion and experiment 

 of the kind. The only modes of applying 

 liquid manure then in use were by the me^ 

 thod of irrigation, by the water-cart, or by 

 hand. The land adjacent to Mr. Thomson's 

 works was a stiff clay. I advised that it 

 should be previously drained, and that Mr. 

 Smith, of Deanston, should be consulted as 

 to the drainage, and on the mechanical ap- 

 pliances for applying the refuse. Mr. Smith 

 very soon entered into my views on this sub- 

 ject. The drainage was carried out as he 

 recommended. Mr. Henry Thomson, jr., 

 who took great interest in the subject, car- 

 ried out the first experiment of the applica- 

 tion of the refuse by the hose, which appears 

 to me to have been completely successful. 

 In another place in Lancashire I advised a 

 friend to apply the liquid refuse by means of 

 the hose, and to engage Mr. Smith to carry 

 out the preparatory work of land-drainage. 

 Mr. Thomson pumped up the sewage water 

 from a well or shaft, into a tank made at the 

 top of a field about 80 feet above the rest 

 of the farm. He found that under that 80 

 feet pressure, by means of the hose, with the 

 labour of two men, one to remove the hose, 

 and another to direct the nozzle, they could 

 distribute about 2,000 gallons of liquid ma- 

 nure in an hour (per acre). The important 

 result was this: that it was to be accom- 

 plished by the labour of two men ; and sup- 

 pose we give 2^d. or 3d. an hour, that de- 

 livery of the 2,000 gallons was accomplished 

 for 6d. They tried the water-cart — this was 

 on land immediately adjacent to the farm; — 

 the water-cart, and expense of delivery of 

 the same quantity by that was, I think, about 

 5s.; the expense of leading and spreading 

 stable-dung was about lis. That was about 

 the relative mechanical cost: 6d. for the de- 



