Half-a-dozen English Sewage Farms. 
409 
submit to a pecuniary sacrifice in order to secure the necessary 
-sanitary advantages. 
Coming now to the year 1871, in the seventh volume (new 
series) of this ' Journal ' an elaborate review and discussion of the 
whole subject of the agricultural utilisation of town sewage 
appeared from the pen of Mr. Herbert J. Little. The so-called 
earth system, and the various precipitation systems of dealing 
with town sewage, were referred to and condemned. The Reports 
of the Rivers Pollution Commissioners were quoted in illustra- 
tion of the inadequacy of these methods of abating the sewage 
nuisance, and of their utter failure as attempts at realising the 
value of sewage as manure. The application of sewage directly 
to the land, as the only available alternative, was described. The 
soils proper for the purpose, the best mode of preparing them 
for the application, the kinds of crop to be grown upon them, 
and the rotation in which they shall follow one another, were dis- 
cussed. An estimate was drawn up of the probable costs and 
returns in a hypothetical case. The kind of live stock to be 
recommended on such a farm was considered. The applicability 
of sewage to the crops of a market-garden was discussed. Many 
of Mr. Little's recommendations and conclusions have stood the 
test of experience since the date of his Paper. Some of them, 
indeed, date from both writings and experience prior to his 
Essay, which, however, is still well deserving the study of the 
sewage engineer and agriculturist. It is the fitness of the crop 
selected that is the measure of the fertilising effect of the sewage 
on it. Succulent and rapidly growing green crops are the most 
appropriate for the sewage farm ; and none should be kept longer 
than it retains the vigour of growth, on which its usefulness as a 
sewage-consumer depends. Italian rye-grass, the best of them 
all, should not be kept growing longer than one year. Mangel- 
wurzels and cabbages were confidently recommended. Grain 
•crops were, with less judgment, but also with less confidence, sug- 
gested as a necessary part of profitable sewage management. 
Mr. Hope's farm below Romford was described as a good example 
of the management required. The operations here had, indeed, 
then hardly been completed, and their result was still to be 
ascertained. Still more directly, because professedly, speculative 
are the details of the calculation in which Mr. Little indulged 
in his estimate of the probable expenditure and receipts on a 
sewage farm of 500 acres, receiving the sewage of a town of 
20,000 inhabitants — and yielding a profit of nearly a half-penny 
per ton ! 
Since the date of Mr. Little's Paper there has been much 
costly experience of the subject to which it referred. Sanguine 
estimates have nowhere been realised ; heavy losses have been 
