OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 63 



" After having had practical experience of the fertihzing effects of 

 sewage and Hquid manure, I have for several years devoted part of 

 my leisure time to an examination of the arrangements adopted by 

 the principal cities and towns for disposing of sewage. At first I 

 looked at it from the agricultural standpoint, but as I proceeded 

 with the inquiry I had to widen the range of view. The place I 

 visited last was Northampton. I propose at present to write a 

 concise note of what the authorities of that town have done. 

 Northampton has a Board of Commissioners for dealing with 

 sewage and kindred nuisances, which is distinct from the corpora- 

 tion. I believe their number is limited to twelve, of whom six 

 belong to one political body and six to the other. These twelve 

 commissioners, as a body, must therefore, be non-political, six of 

 one being equal to half-a-dozen of another. The town contains at 

 present about 50,000 people. Many experiments were made at the 

 expense of this body for purifying the sewage. At last they adopted 

 the scheme which I proceed to describe. Near the town there is a 

 number of tanks in which the sewage is allowed to settle for somg 

 time, so as to allow the more bulky of its solid contents to fall to 

 the bottom and be collected. Deprived of these solid matters 

 (This is the intercepting system) the sewage is conveyed in a main 

 culvert about four miles from the town, where it is received on a 

 tract of ground containing upward of 300 acres, which was 

 purchased at a cost of ^^130 an acre. * * Up to the present 

 the outlay has amounted to upwards of ^80,000. The soil is not 

 naturally the best adapted for sewage farming; it does not, however, 

 offer any insuperable obstacle to success. The sewage is received at 

 the highest point of the farm, from which it flows by gravitation to 

 the lowest, which is several feet below the main that runs by, and 

 into which the sewage passes after it has undergone clarification. 

 The sewage is distributed over the farm by a simple system of 

 carriers, and it is used mainly for irrigation. After it goes over one 

 plot it flows to another, and so onwards. At the lowest part of the 

 farm a permanent plot of osiers has been planted, the intention 

 being that this plot will serve as a filter-bed for abstracting from the 

 sewage all offending material which is not taken out by irrigation. 

 After percolating through the soil of this osier bed the clarified 

 sewage is received in a second, or outlet culvert, which is about two 

 miles long, and in which the fall — one foot to the mile — is less than 



