May 2, 1865. ] 



JOTTENAL OF HOKTICtJLTUEE AKD COTTAGE O-AKDENEB. 



33S 



ISGO there are two establishments near Breslau, in one of 

 which Pine leaves are converted into wool, while in the 

 other, for invalids, the waters used in the manufacture of 

 Pine wool are employed as curative agents. The process for 

 converting the Pine needles into wool was discovered by Mr. 

 Pannev^itz. In the hospitals, penitentiaries, and barracks of 

 Vienna and Broslau, blankets made from that material are 

 now exclusively used. One of their chief advantages is that 

 no kind of vermin will lodge in them. The material is also 

 used as stuffing, closely resembles horse-hair, and is only one- 

 third its cost. When spun and woven, the thread resembles 

 that of hemp, and is made into jackets, spencers, drawers, 

 and stockings, flannel and twill for shirts, coverlets, body 

 and chest warmers, and knitting-yarn. They keep the body 

 warm without heating, and are very durable. The factories 

 are lighted with gas made from the refuse of the above 

 manufactvu'es. — C. W. H. — (Athenccum.) 



ON THE UTILISATI0:N" op IflGHT SOIL 

 APAET FKOII SEWAGE. 



(Continued from page 307.) 



But I am losing sight of the pamphlet. Mr. "Wilmot, at 

 page 6, refers to two others written by the Eev. Henry 

 Moule, entitled " Health and Wealth," and " Manure for the 

 Million." I have never seen them, but they first drew Mr. 

 Wilraot's attention to the subject, but, unfortunately, 

 machinery was suggested, which, let me add, for the million, 

 would be likely to prove a failure, yet as to the objection as 

 to the difficulty of procuring dry earth, I think that would 

 be easily overcome. The habit of the cat and some other 

 animals is happOy adverted to to prove that we cannot err 

 in copying nature, and that where there is a will the poor 

 dumb creatures point out to us a way. Then follow some 

 remarks by Mr. Wilmot against sewage, which I hope he 

 atones for at page 9, where he says, "I am now only 

 speaking of the million, and do not propose to interfere 

 with the higher classes in private houses, comparatively 

 small in number, who may still wish to employ water as an 

 agent until they can be satisfied it may be dispensed with." 

 and he owns the difBculties of anticipation in these matters 

 to exceed those of reality. Eeturning to the dry ashes 

 again an appeal is made to medical men, and then the 

 example of the Chinese is quoted, and some most sensible 

 remarks are made upon the barracks of European soldiers 

 in India. I cannot pass over a paragraph at page 13, for 

 the advice is most valua ble : — 



" The system I advocate, as applied to country villages, 

 is most simple in operation, as may be seen in some houses 

 in the village near to which I reside in Derbyshire ; but 

 supposing other villages to be unwilling or unable at once 

 to adopt it, much may be readily done in the abatement of 

 nuisances. We will suppose a privy or cesspool to have 

 become offensive, this is caused by water from some channel 

 or anothei having got into it in undue proportions. First 

 stop this channel, and then apply a few barrowfuls, or a 

 cartload or two, of ashes or dry earth, and the whole can be 

 removed and utilised at once without danger; and if, in 

 future, the owners of the vault and privy would prevent 

 water getting into it, and throw daily into it, or even 

 weekly, the dust and ashes obtained from their houses, they 

 would soon have a store of valuable manm-e for the garden. 

 The system might also be employed most advantageously 

 in small fai-ms, and more so even in large ones. 



"We wiU suppose the small farmer to have no spare shed 

 under which he could place his manui-e heap, but he might 

 possibly have a spare stall, cow or horse, or he might erect 

 a thatched shed. In this let him place daily the contribu- 

 tions of his cows, horses, and pigs, together or separately, 

 under cover, and daily place over them the dust obtained 

 from his house, or his cinders or dry road scrapings, 

 or whatever of dry road soil his farm affords, and in a few 

 months he would have a collection of valuable manure 

 exceeding in quantity anything he had before anticipated, 

 and his straw would be all saved for chopping up; of 

 course the large farmer might make more extensive and 

 beneficial arrangements on the same principle. I was lately 

 discussing this subject with a clergyman, who told me that 

 he had for years placed the riddled dust of his ashes in a 



comer of his yard, ^without cover, day by day, and had 

 poured on it daily all the slops of his house, and soapsuds, 

 dish-washings, &c., and his gardener and farming man had 

 been most willing to use the heap up in his garden and 

 farm, especially when mixed with other composts, but he 

 told me he had remarked that in rainy weather the heap 

 became offensive. This only showed the simple necessity of 

 a shed or cover for his heap." 



In following paragraphs the futility of using vegetable 

 substances — such as sawdust, which will not deodorise, and 

 cinders, which wdl, but did not, from careless superintend- 

 ance — are pointed out, also where earth-closets would prove 

 peculiarly suitable ; and in a few closing lines Mr. Wilmot 

 allows a strong bias against sewage once more to appear, 

 and in this respect I beg to differ with him. When tovm 

 sewage is allowed to run into our rivers, then I ,grant him 

 it is in opposition to the laws of economy and nature. 

 Nevertheless, in a sanitary point of view, the prohibition of 

 cesspools and the free use of water in towns are conducive to 

 health, and so soon as we can convince people that sewage 

 is a valuable manure, and that 80,000 gallons of liquid can 

 be pumped by steam power 100 feet high at a cost of Is., 

 the whole diiiieulty will vanish, and by-and-by local autho- 

 rities will only be too likely to become embarassed with 

 applications for the sewage. It is not merely as it relates 

 to waterclosets, but there is the chamber-ley, soapsuds, and 

 so many other manurial ingredients held in suspension in 

 the house sewage of the upper and middle-class residences 

 in the country, and of factories, barracks, workhouses, and 

 prisons, that it ever must be a great saving to conduct it to 

 the land by its own gravity in a liquid state, and it seems 

 to me that there is no choice in the matter as regards towns 

 from the increasing use of waterclosets. In towns, too, the 

 inhabitants could never be supposed to become interested 

 in the earthing-over process in a cultural point of view; 

 besides, conveyed at once upon the land no deodorisation 

 would be required. The ground is the only perfect deodo- 

 riser, naturally operating very rapidly in purifying the 

 sewage, for the manurial matters held in suspension are at 

 once abstracted as it filtrates through the soil. I find 

 that almost as soon as it is applied to this garden all smell 

 disappears; and is not this in point of fact performing arti- 

 ficially and at once what in the dry-manure system has to 

 be done naturally by the rain ? We have had both systems 

 at work here for years to our great advantage, but there is 

 this distinction in practice — the earthy matter is cast out of 

 the closet once a-year, and mixed with the compost-heap 

 just before it is wheeled on to the garden to be worked into 

 the ground in the trenching process, after the manner 

 pointed out at page 169 ; but the sewaEre from the tanks is 

 used frequently, and it is never now allowed to remain in 

 bulk long enough to arrive at the putrefactive stage. 



Mr. Wilmot adds a postscript to his pamphlet in con- 

 sequence of an issue of a third edition of Mr. Moule's 

 " National Health and Wealth," from which he learns that 

 that gentleman's principle has been adopted in some of the 

 gaols and barracks in India," and also that " the Chinese 

 although they save and utilise everything, do not in the 

 first instance apply dried earth as a deodoriser. This dis- 

 covery is due to Mr. Moule." Seven years ago, in Vol. XIX., 

 page 368, in an article stating the effects of syringing the 

 foliage of fruit trees, in a state of blight, with hot diluted 

 ammoniacal liquor, 1 wrote the following: — "Analogous to 

 the application of ammonia to the leaves of trees, there is a 

 practice in China. It is pointed out as follows by the Times' 

 special correspondent, wi-iting from Hong Kong, on the 

 subject of Chinese agriculture : — ' Grass grows rank only 

 upon graves. One or two buffaloes, two or three goats, a 

 breeding sow, ugly long-legged fowls (called Cochin-Chinas 

 in England), and a flock of ducks and geese, are the live 

 stock of a Chinese farm, which maintaius a hundred la- 

 bourers. Stable-yard manure is scant. Human ordure is 

 collected with care in numerous open earthenware pans, 

 where passers-by can contribute their offerings, both offend- 

 ing the senses and poisoning the air. In the suburbs, each 

 house has its cesspool ; in the country, each cottage its in- 

 viting latrine. At Ningpo two immense pans lie opposite 

 to the entrance door of the first native merchant of the 

 city, awaiting the payment of 2000 dollars, which is the 

 price of their removal. To an Englishman, who visits 



