402 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



Jt'NE a«, IH-M. 



through) be used, and that the lime or Parker's ce- 

 ment be good. 



It seems, too, that Ihey have in that neighbor- 

 hood turned even the drainings from the public 

 roads to an useful account. "Upwards of twenty 

 laborers' gardens have been watered by the rain 

 which formerly injured the public road, and was 

 therefore turned into a sink well, the water from 

 which was used in planting potatoes in 18;3.5, and 

 occasioned good crops when sets not so watered 

 entirely failed." 



Setocr Drainage. 



Considerable attention has recently been paid to 

 the national value of the drainage matters of ail 

 great cities now generally wasted in the adjoining 

 rivers; and this has been chiefly owing to the ex- 

 ertions of theTliames Improvement Company ; and 

 although from want of being properly supported, 

 little has boon yet effected towards redeeming this 

 loss, yet the farmers of England have had, through 

 the society's exertions, some facts of a very impor- 

 tant nature laid before them. It has been shown 

 that through the sewers of every town, an inunense 

 mass of urine and other excrements are annually 

 lost to the soil, und that to such a sensible e.xtent 

 does this mass of drainage improve for the purposes 

 of irrigation the water of a river, that the formers 

 have clearly ascertained that its value is increased 

 very perceptibly as a fertilizer after it has passed 

 even a small country town. I instance the waters 

 of the Itchen as employed both above and below 

 the city of Winchester. And whenever it has been 

 found practicable to secure the sewer drainage in 

 its unmixed state, it has been found, when employ- 

 ed in irrigation, to produce the most luxuriant crops 

 of grass — and in no place has this been carried to 

 so great an extent, as in Uie neighborhood of Ed- 

 inburgh, wliich city, from its elevated position, af- 

 fords unusual facilities for the conveyance of the 

 sewer waters over the adjoining lands. 



There are, says Mr Thomas Oliver, notless than 

 three hundred imperial acres to which it is regular- 

 ly applied, and with great advantage. Such ground 



and generally brings yearly from twcntyfour to I 

 thirty pounds per acre. In 182(1, part of the Earl 

 of Moray's meadow fetched fiflyseven pounds per 

 acre. 



About forty acres of the Craigintinny lands were 

 formed into catch-nork meadows before the year 

 1800, which comprises what is called Fillieside 

 Bank Old Meadows, and is generally let at a rent 

 of from twenty to thirty pounds per acre. In the 

 spring of 1821, thirty acres of waste land called 

 the Freegate Whins, and ten acres of poor sandy 

 soil, were levelled and formed into irrigated mead- 

 ow, at an expense of one thousand pounds. The 

 pasturage of the Freegate Whins was let previous- 

 ly to this improvement for forty pounds per annum, 

 and the ten acres for sixty pounds. They now 

 bring from fifteen to twenty pounds an acre per an- 

 num, and may be much improved. This, adds Mr 

 Stephens, is one of the most beneficial agricultural 

 improvements ever undertaken, for the whole of the 

 Freegate Whins is composed of nothing but sand, 

 deposited from time to time by the action of the 

 waves of the sea. 



Never was one thousand pounds more happily 

 spent in agriculture. It not only required a com- 

 mon sewer to bring about this great change, but a 

 resolution in the proprietor to launch out his capi- 

 tal in an experiment on a soil of such a nature. — 

 One hundred and ten of Mr Miller's meadows in 

 182", gave a clear profit of two thousand and ten 

 pounds. The yearly expense of keeping these 

 meadows in repair is from ten to fifteen shillings 

 per acre, which is more than double the expense of 

 keeping water meadows in repair in general, for 

 the watering of them is not only through the win- 

 ter season, but the water is put on them for one 

 or two days together, immediately after every cut- 

 ting of the gras? throughout the whole of the sea- 

 son." 



It is to be lamented that so little has been hith- 

 erto done in England towards imitating the exam- 

 ple of our Scotch brethren in saving the drainage 

 matters of our large cities, a question of no mean 

 importance in even a national point of view, and 



is usually kept in gras.s, and yields from three to i yg.t i,o,y few persons are even aware of its amount, 

 six cuttings in the season, which let to dairymen , ^^ of the value of the fertilizing riches of the soil 

 and others at rents varying according to cireum- j hourly pouring into the sea. 



stances from twelve to twentyfour pounds per acre, j jjy carefully conducted experiments, and very 

 By this sewer water, says Mr Stephens, about 200 I accurate guaging, it has been ascertained that the 

 acres of grass land (1834) for the most part laid in- i principal Lo°ndon sewers convey dailv into the 

 to catch-work meadow, are irrigated, whereof 130 Thames 11.5,608 tons of mixed drainage,' consisting 

 belong to W. H. Miller, Esq., of Craigintinny, and i ^^ ^^ average composition of one part of solid or 

 the remainder to the Earls of Haddington and Mo- I ^g(,|,anically suspended matters, and twentyfive 

 ray, and other i)roprietors. The meadows belong- j pa,.ta absolutely fluid. But if we only allow one 

 ing to these noblemen, and part of the Craigintimiy | ^„^^ ;„ thirty of this immense mass to be composed 

 meadows, or what -are called the Old Meadows, i ^f goii^j ^uhstances, then we have the large quan- 

 contain about fifty acres, and have been irrigated ^Hy of more Uian 3,800 tons of solid manure daily 

 for nearly a century. They are by far the most ■ ,^,^3^,,^ i^ jhe river from London alone! What 



valuable on account of the long and continued ac- 

 cumulation of the rich sediment left by the water ; 



might not the farmers of England effect if tliis mass 

 f fertilizing matter was preserved at a reasonable 



indeed, the water is so very rich tiiat the tenants of ; r^^^, f^^ their use ? Fifteen tons of this solid ma- 

 the meadows lying nearest to the town have found ! n.jrc— nay, ten tons would render in some degree 

 it advisable to carry the common sewer water i f„^-^^ ^^ j^^^e of the poorest cultivated, or even 

 through deep [londs, in which the water deposits I common or heath land. But allow, for the sake of 

 part of the superfluous manure bnfore it runs over I cp„„cy^ that twenty tons were required, even 

 the ground. Although the formation of these mead- 

 ows is irregular, and the management very imper- 

 fect, the effects of the water are astonishing ; they 



produce crops of grass not to bp equalled, being | ^^uij ''^f^^^^ ^n anhual supply for fiftyfour thousand 



acres 1 Can I put this in a stronger light ? Is it 

 not lamentable that the fertilizing matter for such 



then 3800 tons — 20 gives a daily allowance of ma- 

 nure sufficient for 180 acres of land ; and if we give 

 500 days on which this manure was collected, that 



cut from four to six times a year, and the grass 

 given green to milch cows, 



The grass is let every year by public sale, in I a breadth of land should be annually lost to the 

 small patches of a quarter of an acre and upwards, I country ? And in this calculation I allow nothing 



for the absolTitelyy7«i(/ portion of the drainage — I 

 am now speaking of its mechanically diffused mat- 

 ters ; added to which the farmer will readily allow 

 that when once these 54,000 acres are fertilized 

 and rendered productive, that some time elapses 

 before even the most naturally barren soils require 

 again replenishing with any other manure than that 

 which their own crops supply by the assistance of 

 the live stock of the farm ; so that in fact, in each 

 and every year 54,000 acres of land might be re- 

 covered from the waste and brought into cultiva- 

 tion by the solid manure of the London drainage 

 alone. 



These facts, these conclpsions, are not confined 

 to London; for, unfortunately, the drains of all the 

 English towns are pouring the agricultural riches 

 of the land into the ocean through a thousand pores, 

 and it is only by the exertions of its unrivalled 

 merchants, as I have elsewhere endeavored to show, 

 that by their enormous imports of animal and veg- 

 etable matters, the land has not, by being gradu- 

 ally drained of its organic matters, been rendered 

 sensibly less productive than in former periods, if 

 not nearly sterile. The quantity of food lost to 

 the country by this waste of manure is very great; 

 for, only allowing one crop of wheat to be raised 

 on these 54,000 acres, and taking three-quarters 

 per acre as the average produce, this gives 102,000 

 of wheat per annum — a quantity sufficient to find 

 bread for 102,000 peisons ; and although I confine 

 this statement to the produce of one crop only, yet 

 every cultivator is aware tliat under the ibur-shift 

 system four crops are usually obtained by once ma- 

 nuring the soil, viz. : 1 turnips, 2 oats, 3 barley, 4 

 wheat. 



In those situations, therefore, where the farmer 

 has access to sewer water, he will have little need 

 of preparing liquid manure artificially, for which 

 Evelyn, in his treatise upon earth, more than two 

 centuries since, gives some very good directions. 

 Thus, when speaking of sheep's dung, p. 123, he 

 observes of it, " profitable on cold grounds, and to 

 impregnate liquors of choice use in the garden," 

 and p. 160, he gives the following directions for 

 making "Muck water, cried up for doing wonders in 

 the field — throw off the shorte.st and best marie in- 

 to your cistern exceedingly coiiuninule and broken, 

 which you may do with an iron rake, or like instru- 

 ment, till the liquor becomes very thick ; cast on 

 this the dung of fowls, conies, sheep, &c , frequent- 

 ly stirring it ; to this add the soil of horses and 

 cows, grains, lees of wine, ale, beer, and any sort 

 of beverage, broths, brine, fatty and greasy stuff of 

 the kitchen ; then cast in a quantity of melting 

 chalk, of which there is a sort very unctuous, also 

 blood, urine, &c., mixed with the water, and with 

 this sprinkle your ground at seasonable limes; and 

 when you have almost exhausted the cistern of the 

 liquid, then mingle the residue with the grosser 

 compost of your stable and cow-house. The tak- 

 ing up of the water out of the cistern you may much 

 facilitiite, by sinking a tub or vessel near the cor- 

 ner of the cistern, and piercing it with holes at the 

 bottom and sides, by which means you may take 

 it out so clean as to make use of it through a great 

 syringe or watering engine." 



There is yet, continues Evelyn, a shorter pro- 

 cess, namely, the watering with fishmongers' wash 

 impregnated with the sweepings of ships and ves- 

 sels trading with salt, adding to it the blood of the 

 slaughter-house. He then proceeds to give vari- 

 ous recipes for making other liquid manures ; in 

 which he strongly recommends the use of nitre as 



