Half-a-dozen English Sewage Farms. 427 
The following Table represents the balances of the several 
■annual accounts since 1871. 
Cost and Returns for Northern Sewage Farm. 
Year. 
Valuation and 
Kxpenditure. 
Receipts and 
Valuation. 
ProBt. 
1870- 1 
1871- 2 
1872- 3 
1873- 4 
1874- 5 
1875- 6 
£ s. d. 
246S 0 4 
2777 6 7 
2G28 14 0 
2790 14 2 
2658 19 4 
2464 7 9 
£ s. d. 
2881 13 5 
3004 18 4 
2882 3 8 
2900 10 4 
2982 0 11 
2936 7 3 
£ «. d. 
413 13 I 
227 11 9 
253 9 8 
109 16 2 
323 I 7 
471 19 6 
Total . 
15788 2 2 17587 13 11 
1799 11 9 
The last column is not properly designated profit, for it only 
tells you the amount by which the receipts have exceeded the 
•expenses of labour and seed. The enormous rental of 13/. and 
more per acre, which the farm has to bear, owing to the outlay 
■which has been incurred, is not included. 
Reverting now to some of the details of farm management, 
Mr. Fairbairn prefers the early autumn as the best seed-time of 
Italian rye-grass. He sows, not later than September, 3 bushels 
per acre, in two sowings crossing one another, upon a pea- or 
bean-, or early oat-stubble — worked as thoroughly as possible — 
and the first cutting of such a sowing, which I saw last May, 
certainly could not have been less than 16 tons per acre, leaving 
as perfectly thick and strong a stubble of rye-grass root as I have 
€ver seen, for the four or five subsequent cuttings which it will 
yield this year, and the three or four less satisfactory cuttings 
which it will yield next year, before it is ploughed up and well- 
fallowed for the wheat and bean crop to succeed it. In no case 
has ordinary farm-manure been applied to these or any other 
■crops on this farm. The large quantity of dung made in the 
stalls has all been sold to neighbouring farmers, and the crops 
have depended on sewage-manure alone. The heavy crop of 
grass to which I have referred was grown on land — a stiff and 
inferior soil — which had received no other manure than sewage 
since 1869. It is questionable if this be good policy. The land 
is not naturally fertile, and after a winter's watering it ploughs 
up stiff and unkindly, and it is very difficult to get a tilth 
in which mangel-wurzel seed will sprout. Nevertheless, heavy 
crops of mangel are grown, and 3 acres last year yielded a 
revenue of 108Z. for mangel sold, besides a considerable quantity 
of roots consumed at home by cattle. If this land were dressed 
with farmyard-manure at intervals, as well as sewaged, it would 
