CHAPTER XIII 



MISCELLANEOUS ENQUIRIES 



I. Experiments upon Sewage Irrigation. 

 II. Experiments upon Malt and Barley. 



III. Experiments upon Ensilage. 



IV. The Composition of Wheat Grain and its Mill Products. 

 References. 



I. EXPERIMENTS UPON SEWAGE IRRIGATION. 



FROM time to time the Rothamsted investigators were called 



upon for work dealing with various debatable questions of 



public importance more or less connected with agriculture. 



For example, Lawes was appointed a member of the Royal 



Commission which was charged in 1857 "to inquire into the 



best mode of distributing the sewage of towns, and applying it 



to beneficial and profitable uses." The application of sewage 



to land was naturally one of the subjects of enquiry, and was 



entrusted to a sub-committee consisting of Lawes and Way, 



who carried on during 1861-64 experiments at Rugby on the 



growth of grass with and without sewage treatment, and on 



the value of the sewage-irrigated grass for feeding stock. The 



experimental station at Rothamsted was much occupied with 



the superintendence of these experiments and with the analytical 



and statistical work involved. The general conclusion from the 



experiments was that broadcast irrigation on grass land was 



the best way of dealing with sewage, the highest returns being 



obtained when large quantities of sewage, as much as 9000 



tons per acre, were employed. 



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