432 
Half-a-dozen Englisli Sewage Farms. 
yielded, it cannot be considered an example of profitable sewage 
utilisation. Even supposing the depth through which the sewage 
percolates to its escape to be only 6 feet (which is certainly less 
than the quantity of soil and subsoil which in dry weather is 
available), the 180 acres held by the Corporation are enough 
under careful management (according to Dr. Frankland's labora- 
tory experience) to cleanse the l;rcal waste of nearly 200,000 
persons; so that under the most careless management, i.e., 
management which takes no care at all directly for the cleansing 
of the sewage, but is directed simply to the use of it as a manure 
for plants, there is not a chance of the drainage water from this 
farm creating a nuisance. It is, therefore, exclusively to the- 
subject of farm profit that the Corporation of Bedford may direct 
its attention ; and the farm is so perfectly adapted for the use of 
sewage, and so fortunate in its position in the midst of a district 
of for the most part arable land, and close by a prosperous and 
considerable market town, that if ever land will repay the cost 
of pumping the sewage that is applied to it, it must be here. 
Concluding Remarks. 
In addition to these sewage farms (six examples, including 
seven holdings : two of them — Cheltenham and North Tunbridge 
Wells — a stiff clay ; three of them — Bedford, South Tunbridge 
Wells, and Doncaster — light soils ; and two — Leamington and 
Chorley, of medium character : three of these examples, Chelten- 
ham, Chorley, and Tunbridge Wells, receiving their sewage by 
gravitation ; and three, Leamington, Doncaster, and Bedford, 
receiving their sewage by pumping), I have visited for the pur- 
pose of this report several other instances of sewage farming — 
West Derby, Walton-on-the-Hill near Liverpool, Altrincham, 
i31ackburn, and Wrexham — in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Derby- 
shire. I am also well acquainted with other English sewage- 
farms — as those of Aldershot, Banbury, Birmingham, Bury St. 
Edmunds, Crewe, Croydon, Eton, Harrogate, Harrow, Kendal, 
Alalvern, Norwich, Reading, Reigatc, Romford, Rugby, Swindon,. 
Warwick, Wolverhampton, Worthing. In addition to this I had 
for two years charge of the Lodge Farm near Barking, where the 
Metropolis Sewage Company have used from 300,000 to 600,000 
tons of sewage annually during the past ten years, and I have 
narrowly watched its management during all that time, first, 
under the Hon. H. Petre, and lor the last six years by Mr. H. J. 
Morgan, the Secretary to the Company. To some of these farms, 
and notably to tliose at Aldershot, West Derby, Wrexham, and 
Barking, I shall refer in justification of the conclusions on the 
whole subject, which 1 desire to draw especially from tlio, six 
