480 [Assembly 



My opinion is, that manure should never under any circum- 

 stance?, be placed upon land in any other than a soluble form, or 

 plowed under green ; on all farms there should be tanks, or large 

 cisterns arranged, into which all the manure of the farm may be 

 thrown, and there permitted to remain well saturated with water, 

 and when fit for use, pumped by means of a small steam engine, 

 through proper gutta percha pipes, to the field requiring it. Our 

 parks are annually top-dressed with street refuse, consisting of 

 debris, horse manure, and decayed vegetable matters, which for a 

 long time emit exceedingly offensive smells, indicating the escape 

 of gases advantageous to the grass if they were kept near it, but 

 injurious to the health of all citizens exposed to them. If one- 

 third the quantity, instead of being used as a top-dressing, were 

 applied in solution, or suspension in water, to the surface by 

 means cf carts, hose, or ^ny other mode, the emanations would 

 be small as compared with the top-dressing, and would last more 

 than a day, whereas the top-dressing would till the air with miasma 

 for weeks, if not an entire winter, offending the olfactory nerves 

 and injuiiug the public health, besides almost entirely losing that 

 which constitutes the pabulum of plants j a heavy rain of two or 

 three days continuance, would wash away the productive portions 

 of the manure, or a long frost would destroy its value by locking 

 up the ground, and thus dissipating the ammonia, and a drouth 

 in summer would have a like effect upon spring top-dressing. By 

 keeping such refuse in a liquid form, the loss from emanations is 

 much diminished, the disintegration of the ground necessary to 

 the proper application of the refuse is more complete, and the 

 time required to apply it greatly shortened, and the chance of 

 loss from bad weather diminished. 



Our sewer water might be used for the parks in the city to very 

 great advantage, and could be put on by proper carts early in the 

 morning, and the offensiveness of smell would only last in nine 

 times out often, according to the atinos[>here, during the time of 

 its application. I wish our Mayor, who is immortalizing himself 

 in various ways, would adopt this plan, and he will soon find it 

 copied by every city in the Union. Most soils are admirably 

 adapted to absorb manure rapidly put on in this shape, not merely 



