Sewage- Farming. 
September, 1869, and at once set to work to make a clean sweep 
of existing divisions and obstacles, that is, hedges, ditches, banks, 
trees, &c., in order to be able to remodel the entire surface. The 
boundary of the farm was more or less irregular, as are the boun- 
daries of all farms. One of my principal objects was therefore so 
to arrange the distribution of the sewage as to be incommoded to 
the minimum possible extent by these irregular boundaries. Of 
course all farming, if it is to pay, has to be conducted by the aid 
of horses or steam. But neither horses nor steam can cultivate 
the land unless in parallel lines, which must also be more or 
less straight. 
" As regards the system of sewage distribution by means of 
the ridge and furrow, this necessity of horse or steam cultivation 
offers no difficulty, as nothing is more simple than to form a low 
ridge by means either of the horse or of the steam-plough ; but 
clearly it would not do to have divisions, whether consisting of 
roadways or main distributing-channels, running in such a 
manner as to interfere with those lines of cultivation. Of course 
the easiest and simplest way of distributing a liquid over a given 
area of surface would be by a series of diverging main channels, 
with minor radiating branches. But such a system would render 
cultivation by horse or steam power absolutely impossible. The 
main distributing-channels must clearly be either parallel with 
the lines of cultivation, or they must intersect them as nearly at 
right angles as possible. 
" A reference to the accompanying map will show how I have 
carried out these principles on my Romford farm. The highest 
land on the farm is at Plots A and U, from which it slopes gradually 
down to a contour line a little above the engine-house. From there 
it falls much more rapidly down to the little valley by the side of 
the river, forming, in fact, a steep hill-side. The comparatively 
flat land above and below this hill-side is all laid out or is now 
being laid out, as indicated by the small black lines, in beds, on the 
ridge-and-furrow system, each bed being 30 feet wide. The 
hill-side itself is ploughed horizontally with a turn-wrest plough, 
and then with a double-mouldboard plough thrown into little 
ridges, as if lor potatoes, also horizontal. The sewage is applied 
to this hill-side from a carrier running along the top, the hori- 
zontal grooves of the double-mouldboard plough effectually pre- 
venting the liquid scouring away the earth from the plants. On 
this system, Italian rye-grass cannot, of course, be grown, nor 
can cereals; but the slope of the hill-side is far too rapid to 
permit of the application of any liquid by irrigation if the 
surface were left smooth ; this is therefore no drawback. 
" It will be observed that a roadway leads to every plot and 
to each bed in every plot ; also that the land is so laid out that 
