396 APPENDIX. [No. XXXVI.B. 



Those experienced cultivators at once hit the blot of successful sewage 

 application, for the problem still remains, how to separate the water from 

 the sewage in solution. 



Practically, it is not now done. The sewage is passed over the land, 

 which for a short time absorbs the water, but the sewage continues to run 

 by night and day, the land becomes water-logged, and refuses to take more. 

 It becomes inactive, and putrescible water runs over the land to the neigh- 

 bouring brook, there to poison those who have recourse to it for drinking 

 purposes. 



It is pretended, by the Croydon Local Board, that about 150 feet 

 of sewage in depth is filtered by every square foot of ground per annum, 

 which amounts to about seven times the natural rainfall of the district; 

 an amount which is so preposterous that, with the feeblest intelligence, 

 the councillors ought to know it is practically impossible. 



When the land is water-logged, the earth is not aerated, and what 

 soaks through passes to the springs of the district, and renders them 

 poisonous. Wells near the Sewage Farm of Croydon cannot be used, 

 being thoroughly poisoned by the pestilential sewage. 



It is not a disposal of the sewage question for the inhabitants of a 

 town to turn the sewage into the wells of the next village j and this is a 

 question in social science which requires a vigorous treatment. 



As the sewage is supplied over a large area, all good water supply 

 ceases. The cattle are compelled to drink sewage, and the men, under the 

 great pressure of thirst, seek the cleanest water they can find, although, 

 if taken near the farm, it is poisonously contaminated with putrescible 

 matter. 



As a matter of medical social science the wells of a district should 

 never be allowed to be poisoned, if possible ; and, if impossible, without an 

 adequate supply of pure and wholesome water being afforded. 



When the land is water-logged, the sewage passes over the surface, 

 when, instead of the pestilential effluvia being restricted to a channel a 

 few feet wide, it is spread oyer acres of surface, where the utmost possible 

 amount of sewage poison is communicated to the atmosphere. 



What a pei-version of medical social science it is for the doctors of a 

 town to protest against the exhalation from a few square feet of exposed 

 sewage, and yet to regard as immaterial the effluvium of hundreds of acres 

 of sewage marsh. 



But the sewage, as it runs over the earth, is now generally caused to 

 run through rye -grass, because the irrigators say that grass has a cleansing 

 effect. They are true to this extent, that the grass acts as a sort of brush 

 to the sewage, and the pestiferous slime adheres to the blades of the grass, 

 to be carried elsewhere, to be eaten by cattle. When the sewage grass is 

 made into hay, this slime is still adherent ; and, if it be steeped in water, 

 the infusion is acted upon by the sewage ferment, and sometimes putrefies 

 with disgusting effluvia. 



Sewage irrigation cannot be said to be practised according to the rules 

 of social science until the irrigation is so conducted that the earth does not 

 become water-logged, and until the grass is not besmeared with all the 

 poisonous materials which sewage contains. 



If the sewage-ground remains wet, vegetation is crippled, and it is 

 quite remarkable to observe how the roots of trees rot and how the trees 



