Half-a-dozcn English Sewage Farms. 425 
verley Brook, which runs down that valley, it has had to adopt 
sewage-irrigation as a remedy. Situated at the head of valleys 
running from it in two directions, it has taken two small farms 
for this purpose ; one in the northern valley, of about 120 acres, 
of a stiff soil, at a distance of li mile from the town, and one 
of 165 acres in the southern valley, a lighter loam — in some places, 
indeed, a poor moory sand — at a distance of about 3 miles. 
An expenditure of no less than 87,243/., or nearly 300Z. an acre, 
has been thus incurred for engineering, land, and law ex- 
penses — an outlay which involves an annual charge for 'its liqui- 
dation of more than 5 per cent, upon this sum, or over 13Z. an 
acre — making irrigation in this case, however perfect it may be 
as an abatement of the sewage nuisance, altogether hopeless as 
a commercial speculation. The farms are both provided with 
tanks at the outfalls of the main sewers, in which the sewage is 
allowed to deposit its heavier mud, which is removed at intervals 
either to the field close by, or to land in the neighbourhood. The 
mud from the tanks at the head of the northern farm is purchased 
by a neighbouring farmer for 35Z. a-year. The quantity of the 
sewage delivered on these two farms, including the water supply 
of 200,000 to 400,000 gallons daily, and the ordinary subsoil 
drainage of the town site was, when last gauged, 236,000 gallons 
daily on the northern farm, and 414,000 gallons daily on the 
southern farm. Besides this, however, there is an indefinite and 
uncertain quantity of rain-water and storm-water — sometimes 
suddenly more than doubling the quantity of sewage to be dealt 
with, and putting the farm-manager and his irrigators in diffi- 
culties. When I was at Tunbridge Wells last May, a heavy 
rainfall over the town, which was hardly felt at the farm, sud- 
denly flooded all the carriers, rushed over sluices, found its 
way — laden with road-mud and silt — over the good old pasture- 
land, and put every one on the alert to open a passage for it at 
as many points upon the farm at once as possible. 
From the tanks on both farms, substantial brick-built carriers, 
with carefully-levelled margins, contour the sides of the valley 
at as high a level as they can command ; and from one side of the 
valley, through syphon-piping of sufficient size, the sewage is 
conveyed to a corresponding brick-built carrier on the other. In 
addition to this, on the northern farm, the upper conduit is con- 
nected by a corresponding carrier, having frequent sluice-arrange- 
ments on its course down the hill, with a second and a third brick- 
built contour carrier of smaller section at successive levels below 
it. Delivered at frequent openings in these conduits, the sewage 
finds its way to one contoured surface-furrow after another, 
generally at intervals of 18 or 20 yards, or less where the slope 
is steeper, and is spread evenly over the intervening surface, 
