Half-a-dozen English Sewage Farms. 
419 
natural fertility. Nowhere absolutely flat, and sloping in many 
directions, it is very well adapted for the catchwater system, 
which, like every other mode of irrigation, but in a more 
marked degree, permits the use of the water of inigation over 
more than one area before it finally sinks into the subsoil. 
The sewage is made to traverse 5 to 8 acres every day, accord- 
i( ing to the quantity that comes and the nature of the soil to 
which it is being applied. The men employed in distributing 
it — engaged in the cow-house and at other work till breakfast 
|j time, after which the process begins, and generally at liberty 
I again after dinner time, when the pumping ceases — not only open 
stops and regulate the flow during the 4 or 5 hours when the 
pumping generally is going on, but attend to the maintenance 
of the carriers, and to the correction of any faults in the open 
furrows by which the sewage is distributed on the surface of 
each field over which the process is gradually encroaching. 
Every freshly cut area of Italian rye-grass receives a dressing 
soon after the grass has been carried off, and again midway of 
its growth before it is ready to be cut again. The mangels 
are watered as soon as the plants are as large as lettuces, and 
again two or three times during dry weather until of full growth 
— the intervals being long enough to enable the thorough drying 
and the horse- and hand-hoeing of the land at proper times. 
The quantity applied runs down the furrows between the rows 
of plants, being stopped and sent sideways as required, so that 
I I every square yard shall receive its share. And during winter 
the land intended for mangels and for spring-sown corn-crops 
receives its daily share in turn — the freer and more pervious 
soils getting the largest quantity. 
A capital herd of good dairy Shorthorns has at length been 
\ got together, a well-bred Shorthorn bull being employed ; the 
steers as well as the heifers are kept on until ready for sale as 
in-calf cows or fat cattle. The cows receive li cwt. of grass 
apiece daily in their stalls during summer ; getting mangels with 
some hay, and a gallon of bean-meal apiece daily so long as they 
are in-milk, during winter. They yield nearly 600 gallons of 
milk apiece per annum, and it is sold at the farm for Wd. a 
gallon. An annual receipt of 900/. to lOOOZ. is thus calculated 
on for milk. Some 200/. is annually received for mangels sold, 
800/. for grass, and 1500/. for grain and other green crops. 
I And this, with considerable receipts for beef and mutton, wool, 
' and pork, results in a large annual produce, from which the de- 
duction for labour, seed, bought food, and rent, leaves a balance 
which is year by year becoming more satisfactory ; the large 
outlay of the landowner in the engineering expenses of equip- 
I ping the farm for the reception and distribution of the sewage 
I being at length gradually overtaken. 
Ill 
