Half-n-dozcn English Sewage Farms. 
421 
This, it must be understood, is a balance of accounts exclusive 
>)1' rent and interest on capital ; and although the loss has been 
annually diminishing for some years, it is plain that these 
returns show a very unsatisfactory result. The average deli- 
very of water into Chorley for the entire population is about 
■500,000 gallons daily. Only a portion, however, finds its way 
into the town sewer. The quantity of sewage delivered on the 
farm, including the rain-water, subsoil, drainage, &c., varies from 
200 to 3000 gallons per minute. The average dry weather 
ilischarge is 500 gallons per minute, or 360,000 gallons during 
the day of 12 hours. Considering the enormous quantity of the 
sewage, and the fact that there is a large quantity of house 
scavenging done in Chorley on what is called the tub system — 
that indeed there are not more than 200 water-closets connected 
with the sewers — it is plain that the Chorley sewage, however 
filthy and offensive it may be, must be much weaker than that 
of either Leamington or Cheltenham. To that, as well as to the 
wetter and colder climate of the locality, may be in part attributed 
the unsatisfactory result of sewage irrigation in this case. 
The water is delivered through a 15-inch sewer, with a fall of 
I in 70, to the farm, about 1 mile from the town, and it is there 
taken in embanked carriers above the surface of the land, whence 
it commands an area of about 80 acres of a rather stiff loam, 
with natural slopes sufficient for its perfect distribution. The 
land is well drained with 2-inch pipes, 4 feet deep, at intervals 
of six yards ; and being an upland as compared with the bed of 
the rivers Chor and Yarrow, which run in deep ravines on either 
side of it, the drainage water is collected again for a last use 
upon a river-side alluvial level of abou*- 4 acres of permanent 
pasture-land. The whole estate is 98 acres in extent, of which 
II acres are occupied by woodlands on the steep slopes which 
cut off the farm from the two streams. 
The farm was laid out for the reception of the sewage by the 
Town Surveyor, Mr. James Denham, in lands 20 yards wide, 
and there are carriers made by plough and spade along the ridges. 
The sewage is delivered into three or four of these furrows at a 
time by sluices in the main conduit, which runs for the most 
part 3 or 4 feet above the general level. It thus passes over 5 
or 6 acres during the day, the stream being regulated by the 
irrigator, who works a set of stops in the surface furrows, and 
( helps the flow in uneven places with the spade. 
Considering the limited area at disposal, and the quantity of 
water to be dealt with, the land did not seem to me last year 
|to be very wisely cropped. No less that 32 acres were in oats 
and this had the effect of concentrating the application of the 
sewage upon too small a remainder. The oats were a very heavy 
VOL. xir. — s. s. 2 F 
