No. 151.] 389 



is attached to their influence by these people, that laws of the State 

 forbid that any of them should be thrown away, and reservoirs are 

 placed in every house, in which they are collected with the greatest 

 care. No other manure is used for their corn fields. 



The following estimate I found in Johnson's Farmers' Encyclo- 

 paedia, showing the waste of invaluable manures in large cities: He 

 says, by caiefully conducted experiments, and very accurate guagings, 

 it has been found, that the chief of London sewers convey daily into 

 the Thames, about 115,000 tons of mixed drainage, consisting, on 

 an average computation, of one part of solid and 25 parts absolutely 

 fluid matters. Allowing one part in 30 of this immense mass to be 

 composed of solid substances, then we have the large quantity of 

 more than 3,800 tons of solid manure, daily poured into the Thames 

 from London alone, consisting principally of excrements, soot, and 

 the debris of the London streets, which is chiefly carbonate of lime; 

 thus allowing 20 tons of this manure as a dressing for an acre of 

 ground, there is evidently a quantity of solid manure annually pour- 

 ed into the river, equal to fertilizing more than 50,000 acres of the 

 poorest cultivated land ! The quantity of food thus lost to the country 

 by this heedless waste of manure, is enormous, for only allowing one 

 crop of whe; t to be raised on these 50,000 acres, that would be equal 

 to the maintenance of 150,000 persons. London is only one instance 

 of this thoughtless waste of agricultural riches of the soil of Eng- 

 land. How is it in our own country, and even in our own city? Are 

 not the corporation of New-York now constructing sewers through 

 all the principal streets, leading directly to the Hudson, with a view 

 of carrying to that grea^: receptacle substances that iright, if saved 

 for agricultural purposes, help to support thousands? 



The fertilizing liquid produced annually by our population of 400, 

 000, would amply manure 60,000 acres of M'orn out land, and make 

 it yield to the amount of $4,000,000, to say nothing about anthra- 

 cite coal ashes, soot, charcoal dust, and the plaster taken from the 

 walls of houses that are daily pulled down, which latter is a valua- 

 ble manure. I am informed that the Chinese will take down an old 

 wall and replace it with a new one, to obtain the old one as ma- 

 nure. All these substances, and many others, that nre daily wasted 

 in our cities, might be saved. In different paits of 1 urope, there is 

 a substance now in use to disinfect filth, and the product is called 

 animal black; it renders inodorous any substance to which it maybe 

 applied. There is now in this city an agent from some European 

 company, about arranging to disinfect cispools, and render the con- 

 tents portable and inoffensive. If such an arrangement can be made, 



