420 
Half -a-dozen English Sewage Farms. 
A beginning has been made at market-gardening. Rhubarb^ 
broccoli, and strawberries are being cultivated with the aid of 
sewage. The area of the several crops and the order of their 
succession on the land — the crops to which the sewage has been 
applied and the number of dressings given, are severally stated 
in the Tables given above, which, together, give a general and 
tolerably complete picture of the farm and its management 
perfectly intelligible to an agricultural reader. It is only 
necessary to add that the stock is well housed and evidently in 
comfortable and prosperous circumstances ; that the land is 
clean, and the labourers well in hand and apparently contented ; 
and it is plain that Heathcote Farm is in good practical hands, 
and that the real agricultural value of town sewage as a fertiliser 
will one day be perfectly illustrated here. 
Chokley. 
Chorley, a Lancashire town of about 18,000 inhabitants, 
obedient to an injunction restraining the sanitary authority from 
continuing a nuisance in the River Chor, took in 1868, on a 
lease for 21 years, the Common Bank Farm, containing 87 acres, 
for the purpose of sewage utilisation. And in 1871, an Im- 
provement Act having been obtained, at a cost of 1924/., by 
the Chorley Commissioners, giving power to acquire land com- 
pulsorily for, among other purposes, sewage utilisation, this farm 
was purchased on its sale by auction. The Common Bank 
Farm, now nearly 100 acres, lying below the level of the sewer 
outfall, was purchased under this Act at a cost of 6995Z. 12s. %d., 
to which must be added 3994/. 13s. Id., the expense of preparing 
the land, including sewage-carriers, machinery, additional farm- 
buildings, roads, farm implements, and stock. The annual 
charge created by this outlay, which is taken as rent, amounts 
to nearly 600/. per annum — an annuity which at the end of 70 
years will discharge the original loan, when the farm will be- 
come rent free, the property of the Corporation. The annual 
farm receipts and expenses during the first five years appear in 
the following Table : 
AxNUAL Farm Balances,* 1871-1876. 
1871. 
1872. 
1873. 
1874. 
1875. 
187& 
£ 
£ 
£ 
£ 
£ 
£ 
Annual expenses . . 
971 
1000 
879 
1204 
926 
.894 
Annual returns 
738 
654 
557 
979 
847 
975 
Profit. 
Annual loss 
£179 
347 
322 
229 
79 
81 
♦ The accounts arc made up to tlic end of Mny in each year. 
