Seioage-Farmwg. 
411 
not on all) the benefit to the condition of the land from the use 
of straw-manure must be considerable when the constant wetting 
is taken into account. Further, by the use of dung the area 
of land under sewage may be increased, since the former 
manure can in some cases be reserved for crops to which (at 
least in certain stages of them) irrigation is undesirable. Great 
stress must be laid upon this point. The market for milk, 
meat, and corn is unlimited ; the sale of the other produce of 
the farm is restricted by a variety of circumstances. The 
favourite theory of some authorities, that sewage and sewage 
alone is needed for the production of every kind of crop, will hardly 
bear examination. Granted that such is the case, the question 
may be asked, what is the actual loaste of nitrogen in the produc- 
tion of certain crops ? and how is that waste to be accounted for, 
except by the excessive application of liquid ? Heretical as the 
opinion may be, I am persuaded that no theory as to the sufficiency 
of any one kind of manure will be allowed long to stand in the 
way of the practical farmer, but that if the union of these manures 
should prove as beneficial upon sewage-farms as that of others has 
already done to ordinary agricultural land, a great advance will 
have been made in the application of the system upon an exten- 
sive scale. * 
The natural tendency of excessive applications of liquid to a 
soil containing an appreciable amount of aluminous matter is to 
render it sticky, and, as it dries, lumpy and hard of cultiva- 
tion. On the other hand, the tendency of farmyard-dung is to 
open it and render it friable, pervious to rainfall, and generally easy 
of tillage. The term " velvet}'," well known to gardeners, suffi- 
ciently expresses this most desirable condition — a state in which 
every fibre and rootlet gets free play, and the perfect development 
of the plant is thereby assured. It must be distinctly understood 
that nothing has yet been done with sewage which has not been 
also accomplished without it. Great crops and fabulous proceeds 
have, indeed, been realized by its aid, but returns fully as large 
have also been reaped by the use of London or other dung. Its 
value as an aid can hardly be estimated, for it may often be the 
means of saving crops which no reasonable expenditure of time 
or money could otherwise preserve ; but many market-gardeners, 
in the environs of London especially, where their business is 
conducted with prodigious skill, could probably show greater 
average returns than any sewage-farmer has yet been able to 
demonstrate. I do not speak of the expenditure, nor do I allude 
to the exceptional crops with which exceptional seasons will some- 
times reward the one kind of cultivation and sometimes the other. 
I only assert that sewage applied in unlimited quantities has not 
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