ON THE TREATMENT AND UTILIZATION OP SEWAGE. 415 



Section III. — jBretoii's Farm, Romford. 



The systematic observations hitherto carried on with regard to this farm 

 (for a record of which see i^rcvious Reports and the following abstract) have 

 been continued during the past year, and the form of last year's Tables has 

 been again adopted to set out the results arrived at. 



tons. 

 The quantity of sewage received from the town of Romford into 



the tanks and pumped on to land from March 25th, 1872, to 



March 24th, 1873 (inclusive), is according to the gaugings. . 405,443 

 The quantity of eiiluent water repuraped on to laud during the 



same period is , 38,071 



The total quantity of diluted sewage pimiped for distribution "l ... -.-,_, 



is therefore J ' 



The quantity of sewage received from the town of Romford and 



distributed on to land by gravitation during the above period is 74,490 



The quantity of effluent water distributed on to land by gravita- 

 tion during the same period is 8,980 



Therefore the total quantity of sewage, diluted sewage, or | r-g- f-qo 

 effluent water which we ha-so to account for is J '' 



Accounted for thus : — 



As appears by the cropping Table the quantity of 



sewage applied to the land is 523,810 tons. 



Supphed to Mr. Gooch (adjoining farmer) 1,548 



Applied to garden , 2,235 



Total 527,593 



Tables I. & II. are continuations of the Tables of last year bearing the same 

 numbers, and are records of the observations made with regard to the quan- 

 tity and composition of the sewage and the effluent water. From the organic 

 nitrogen column in Table II., referring to the effluent water, it will be seen 

 that an improvement has taken jilace, due probably to the solidifying of the 

 earth over the drains ; the proportions of total nitrogen in the effluent water 

 for the two years show a difference of only 0-01 in 100,000 parts. 



Table III. shows the absolute quantities of nitrogen contained in the 

 sewage and in the effluent water, as calculated from the details summarized 

 in Tables I. and II. 



From this it will be seen that the volume of sewage distributed was con- 

 siderably greater than in the previous year ; but the proportion of nitrogen 

 was smaller, indicating a greater dilution due to the large increase in rainfall. 



It would appear that the total amount of nitrogen distributed on the farm 

 was 26-9814 tons, while the previous year's total would appear from the Table 

 to have been only 21-0245 tons ; but the explanation is that during the previous 

 year a large quantity of undiluted sewage, namely 83,902 tons, " was run 

 upon a plot of land at the lower part of the farm by gravitation, and simply 

 filtered during periods when it could not l)e put on the farm, owing to further- 

 drainage-works being in progress." The amount of nitrogen which must be 

 added to last year's total to make it compai'able with this year's is 0-1904 

 tons, which makes 27-2209 tons, or practically the same quantity as this year. 



