474 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



whereupon a scholasticus, which, according to niy best recollec- 

 tion of Greek, means a dandy, gave it as his opinion that the 

 leak could not be at the bottom, for it was not the lower, but 

 the upper, part of the cask that was empty. If the boys in 

 those times used straws in the wine casks, as we have known 

 them to in cider barrels since, he may have been right in sup- 

 posing that the leak was at the top ; for in that case the cask 

 may have leaked upward. At any rate, a manure heap, left in 

 sun, wind, and rain to its own course, will leak upward, and 

 downward, and all around till nearly half its value, like the 

 upper part of the wine cask, is found wanting. 



With regard to 'the sewage of cities and large towns, it is 

 rather the fault of the British government than of British farm- 

 ers that it is in a great measure lost to agriculture. It is not 

 wholly lost ; that cannot be ; for there is a government above 

 all human government ; and God has ordained physical laws by 

 which the errors of man are sometimes counteracted. Such is 

 the case with the sewage of English cities. So far as hu- 

 man agency goes it is permitted to flow into large rivers, and 

 thence into the ocean ; but here the divine laws take effect, and, 

 in spite of man's error, they restore a portion, it may be one- 

 half of it, to the land. Some of it comes back in the form of 

 spray driven landwards from the ocean; some in the form of 

 fish, which is made directly or indirectly to enrich the ground ; 

 much in the form of shells, which are burned into lime for the 

 soil ; and more in the form of seaweed, shell sand, and other 

 fertilizers along the shore. But, after all, a considerable por- 

 tion of it, not less probably than half, is irrecoverably lost to 

 agriculture. And now let us see what the extent of the loss is. 



When a farmer who provides for a large family, and feeds a 

 great stock, sees his sink spout always running, and the suds 

 often pouring from his laundry, he calculates that by the end of 

 the year there will be accumulated on his premises a large 

 amount of fertilizing materials for his fields. But the popula- 

 tion of London is two and a half millions — about one-twelfth 

 of the population of the United Kingdom, and equal to two 

 hundred and fifty thousand families of ten persons each. They 

 consume twenty million bushels of wheat annually, besides 

 other cereals. There is, of course, a proportionate consump- 



