1908.] 



Water Supply for Villages. 



351 



the south-western counties as far as Devonshire, which con- 

 stitutes the dairy of the metropolis. 



Requirements of Dairy Farms. — A fundamental error with 

 regard to the finance of rural water supplies has grown 

 up with the sanitary legislation of recent years ; it is that the 

 water needs of the few dwellers in sparsely populated districts 

 should be supplied at the expense of land occupiers in such 

 districts without reference to their needs or to the burdens laid 

 upon the latter. The need of dairy farmers for an ample and 

 pure water supply has as yet scarcely been recognised even by 

 themselves ; but, concurrently with che enforcement of a 

 legal obligation that every dairy shall be amply furnished in 

 this respect, will come the recognition of the principle that 

 village water supply is largely a question of dairy water supply. 



Cost Dependent on Area of a Parish. — The parish being 

 the rating unit, it should be (with limitations) also the 

 water area. An average dairying parish consists of several 

 groups of houses, constituting hamlets more or less distant 

 from each other, with the addition of isolated farmsteads and 

 a cottage or two scattered at somewhat wide intervals over the 

 parish area. It is the topographical distribution of the 

 inhabitants of a parish, rather than their number, which primarily 

 determines the cost of supplying them with water, and the 

 bulk of the cost of any such scheme is expended in the neces- 

 sarily long lengths of distributing mains. The capital cost 

 which may reasonably be incurred, if calculated in proportion 

 to the population of the parish, may appear almost prohibitive 

 when compared with that usually expended in towns, but not 

 if it be considered in relation to the needs of dairy farms. 



Example of Cost. — As an example of a somewhat 

 extreme case the small parish of Emborough may be 

 cited. This scheme has recently been completed at a capital 

 cost per head of no less than £8 18s. yd. and an annual 

 charge of 12s. 6d. per head. The whole parish (with 

 unimportant exceptions) belongs to a single owner, the 

 financial arrangements have from time to time been sub- 

 mitted to him and the scheme carried out with his full 

 concurrence and that of his tenants, so that the heavy expendi- 

 ture cannot be considered as being forced on an unwilling 

 community by a council for sanitary reasons. Here we have 



