56 A Solution of the Sewage Problem. [January, 



heap, for restoration to the land at the proper time. We 

 invite epidemics if we permit the former ; and we must 

 cease to expect a fair supply of corn, wine, and oil, or the 

 other bounties of Nature, if we neglect the latter, while we 

 continue to draw from the land all its nutritive properties. 

 The value of land is daily increasing, and therefore the 

 highest possible cultivation becomes necessary. The only 

 means of increasing its productive powers is by manuring, 

 and for this purpose all matters possessing real fertilising 

 value becomes a point of the first importance. 



Many methods for dealing with the sewage of towns have 

 been proposed. They may be classed under the four fol- 

 lowing schemes : — 



1. Irrigation. 



2. Filtration. 



3. Destruction. 



4. Precipitation. 



These schemes may be considered individually or col- 

 lectively in certain combinations. 



Let us deal first with irrigation, and we may say at once 

 that with us it has no favour, for it has been abundantly 

 proved that at the best it is a disposal of sewage merely, 

 and in no way its utilisation ; for the excessively rank vege- 

 tation of a sewage farm forced to take more than is good is 

 no more an evidence of high farming than was Wackford 

 Squeers an evidence of the high feeding of the Yorkshire 

 school. But even as a disposal of sewage it falls lamentably 

 short of efficiency, as maybe seen by any impartial inquirer. 

 Under the most favourable circumstances this system is 

 inadequate to deal with the entire sewage ; for the quantity 

 of land required annually to deodorise this (one acre for 100 

 people) is so large, in proportion to the land available for the 

 purpose, that for financial, geological, and local reasons, 

 the system could not succeed. There are other objections to 

 irrigation with fluid sewage. Land for the purpose must be 

 in propinquity to the town to which the system is applied, 

 and this land may have to be bought in by the pressure of 

 an Act of Parliament, at great expense, as it is generally 

 opposed by wealthy landowners. Such opposition is to be 

 expected ; for the neighbourhood of a sewage farm would 

 certainly not be selected by the rich as a site for their man- 

 sions ; and the value of land is consequently deteriorated. 



The charge of miasmatic emanations arising from a system 

 of sewage irrigation has been abundantly proved by evidence 

 given before the House of Commons by eminent medical 

 and sanitary experts : — 



