1867.] ( 513 ) 



CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 



1. AGKICULTUBE. 



The Cattle Plague has not yet entirely left us. During the past 

 quarter several cases have occurred on farms lying eastward of 

 London, to which the infection may have been brought by the im- 

 ported stock which is landed at Thames Haven and taken into 

 the Metropolitan Market by a railway passing through the district 

 which has suffered. And thus it is, in all probability, that the dis- 

 ease has at length reached the farm and large herd of cows near 

 Barking, belonging to the Metropolitan Sewage Company, to whose 

 proceedings reference has more than once been made in this 

 Chronicle. There were 238 cows on this farm early in August, 

 feeding on the sewage-grown grass which is there cultivated. Of 

 these 12 became diseased and were killed and buried, and 115 were 

 condemned to be slaughtered as having been infected by contact 

 with diseased animals. There then remained 111, in two sheds 

 detached from the homestead, and these have remained healthy. 

 They had been fed on the same food as the others, and bsing sur- 

 rounded by the meadows irrigated by the sewage water, were not 

 only thereby more easily and completely isolated from the other 

 stock, but were at the same time more liable to any injurious influ- 

 ence which the sewage may be capable of exerting. It is satisfactory 

 to learn from this experience, that neither on the food nor on the 

 treatment of these cows can the losses by the Cattle Plague be 

 charged, that sewage-grown grass is perfectly wholesome food, and 

 that the Cattle Plague is, as it has always been supposed to be, simply 

 the result of an imported poison, the special produce of the disease 

 itself. Of the quantity as well as quality of the produce which 

 sewage-water raises even on poor land, the experience of the Barking 

 farm is satisfactorily conclusive. Flax, mangold-wurzel, potatoes, 

 cabbages, and grass have been grown luxuriantly on it ; and dress- 

 ings of the young wheat-plant in spring and early summer have 

 shown what immense bulk of straw can be thus ensured — from 

 which, in suitable seasons, no doubt increased yield of grain must 

 follow. Of the Italian ryegrass thus produced a record has been 

 kept, and on many acres upwards of 50 tons per acre had been 

 obtained from five cuttings by the middle of August. It seems 

 certain that the produce of sewage applications, under all ordinary 

 circumstances, must be sufficient to return a satisfactory profit after 

 the deduction of expenses. 



