PROCEEDINGS OF TKE FARMERS* CLUB. 337 



would it be for every town in our country to have their sewer-water and 

 town refuse collected in a reservoir by means of underground pipes, and 

 from this pumped into a tank made at the top of any field commanding a 

 portion of the contiguous country, from whence by means of hose two men 

 might readily distribute nineteen hundred gallons of liquid manure in an 

 hour, which would be sufficient to cover an acre of land. Villages situated 

 on water courses might cause their niglit soil and other manures in a diluted 

 state to be pumped into a boat worked by an eight or ten-horse power 

 steam engine from which tlu-ee hundred tons could readily be distributed 

 per diem, at elevations of fifty feet or more above the river or stream 

 through hose in lengths of three thousand feet, and its fertilizing power 

 will alwa3^s be found superior to the ordinary top-dressings with manure in 

 the solid form. This process, for more economically distributing town 

 manures, would, in many districts, render navigable rivers and canals the 

 means of giving increased fertility to the land upon their banks, and thus, 

 to some extent, counterbalance the diminution of their value as channels 

 of inter-communication. And it will be found that aftpr six tons of night- 

 soil and urine, diluted with about forty tons of water, have been applied to 

 an acre of land, in an hour no offensive smell will be perceptible. Most 

 farmers may be aware of what would be the nuisance created for days, and 

 sometimes even weeks, by the spreading of such a quantity of that manure 

 undiluted upon the surface as a top-dressing; which quantity would, how- 

 ever, be insufficient to produce the effect desired, because, instead of its 

 being absorbed by the soil and plants, much of it would be wasted in the 

 air if the weather were hot, or washed into the ditches if it were wet. The 

 parks in New York are occasionally top-dressed with street refuse, consist- 

 ing chiefly of dung, which for a long time emits offensive smells, indicating 

 the extent of escapes of gases, unpleasant to whoever ,may be exposed to 

 them. Now, if the same quantity of matter, instead of being so applied 

 in the solid form for top-dressing, had been put on in solution, or suspension 

 in water, and applied in the liquid form to the ^surface of the parks, by 

 means of water-carts, irrigation, or by any other mode, the comparative 

 escape of miasma would have been small, and the emanations inconsider- 

 able as compared with top-dressing. 



When applied in the liquid form on a permeable and well underdrained 

 soil at a temperature of about 70°, the emanations would not last above an 

 hour, as it would only require that length of time to be absorbed produc- 

 tively by the land, as manure. This principle is applicable to the whole of 

 the decomposing animal and vegetable refuse, nightsoil, or other matters, 

 as well as stable manure. The top dressing put on our parks are expose 

 to many casualties from exposure to the weather, such as almost entire loss 

 of those important matters which constitute the food of plants. If there 

 should happen to be a continuf)Us fall of rain for several days, the most en- 

 riching portions of the manure would be washed from the surface into the 

 adjoining water courses. If frost should come on suddenly, so as to lock 

 up the ground, the ammonia would be dissipated, and a long continued 

 drought would injure the active principles of it also. By placing such re- 

 fuse in water, the loss from emanations is not only diminished, but the dis- 



[Am. Inst.] W 



