Half-a-dozen English Sewage Farms. 431 
level, is suirounded by the covered piping into which the pump 
•delivers the sewage, and is laid out in ridges some 30 yards in 
width, with a fall of at least 12 inches from the ridge-line to the 
furrow. The sewage being let flow from the higher embanked pipe, 
passes along these ridges, where 9-inch half-round tiles, placed 
end to end and bedded in the soil, form its carriers ; and it lips 
over the edges down the slope. The land is on a bed of gravel, 
so that a very few drains suffice to keep its subsoil empty, and the 
surface is thus not easily clogged with any quantity of sewage, 
which indeed sinks away as it flows, so that there is rarely any 
water to deliver in the furrows between the lands. The heaviest 
Italian rye-grass, mangel-wurzel, and cabbage crops are grown, 
and nowhere is there seen more luxuriant fertility as the result of 
sewage irrigation. There has always been a very heavy produce 
of Italian rye-grass, onions, potatoes, cabbages, mangels, parsnips, 
and other succulent crops upon the land when I have walked 
over it. Besides this carefully laid-out square of 20 acres, with 
a roadway through the midst of it, the sewage is delivered at 
various points of all the other fields, and these, laid out less care- 
fully, are watered in like manner from surface furrows along the 
higher lines in each, and very heavy crops are grown. The 
cropping last year included 22 acres of Italian rye-grass, sold 
for 399/. 0.S-. M. : 6 a. 1 r. 10 p. of cabbage, sold for 87/. 12s. ; 
40 a. 2 r. 20 p. of mangel-wurzel, sold for 599/. 6s. 6c?. ; 25^ acres 
of potatoes, sold for l40/. 16s. 6f/. ; 10 acres of onions, sold for 
287/. ; 14 acres of oats, sold for 135/. ; 16 a. 1 r. 10 p. of wheat, 
sold for 228/. 13s. 9f/. ; 7J acres of carrots, sold for 116/. Is. ; 
and 8 a. 2 r. 10 p. of gardening crops — as rhubarb, cucumbers, 
cauliflowers, red cabbage, asparagus, vegetable marrows, 6cc., sold 
altogether for 119/. 16s. lit/. The produce has been sold by 
auction on the land. The successive cuttings of Italian rye- 
grass have been sold by auction from time to time during the 
year. From 20 acres of permanent pasture, the sum of 
181/. 10s. 6f/. has been obtained : and altogether 180 a. 3 r. 30 p. 
have yielded 2294/. 17s. 8f/., or nearly 13/. an acre. But large 
as these sums appear to be, the heavy expenses which have been 
incurred leave but little balance available to meet the enormous 
burden of rent-charge which overwhelms the land. The statement 
for 1875 of farm returns and farm expenses, including rent for 
land (917/. 4s.), but not including the charges for pumping, or 
for the discharge of debt, shows indeed an almost exact balance 
of accounts, leaving the cost of pumping (344/. 7s. 4t/.) and the 
rent-charges created by the outlay on engineering works, build- 
ings, pumping-apparatus, &c., as an annual charge upon the town. 
Xo question can arise here about tlie efficiency of the farm as 
a sewage defaecator ; but great as are the crops which it has 
