374 Utilisation of Waste Substances and 
the farm be situated near a town or large village, if a sharp 
look-out be maintained, it is surprising how extensive will the 
list be of materials, some of them of the highest manurial value, 
which may be obtained from this source. But the farm itself 
and its dependencies are perpetual providers of manurial sub- 
stances, and as many of these get " littering " about, a regular 
system of collecting must be maintained to prevent this, and 
convert the " waste " into a " useful " substance. 
The collecting and storing op Water obtained from 
neglected or unknown sources of supply present on 
THE Estate or the Farm. 
This, the third of my selected subjects, is one which possesses 
peculiar interest, not merely on account of its purely economical 
features, but because some of these have their origin in causes 
the existence of which is not even suspected by the great ma- 
jority of the people. The general su*bject is one of wide-spread 
interest, but it concerns rural districts specially, having for them 
an interest altogether peculiar. 
Peculiarities connected with the tcater-supply of Rural dis- 
tricts. — The concentrated populations of cities and towns are 
sure in the long run to have their necessities in the matter of 
water-supply attended to ; and this, however badly they are 
supplied with this necessary of life, and however long they may 
have waited for it. But in the thinly peopled rural districts, 
although the units of the population obviously require this 
necessary equally with the units of town populations, they cannot 
put forward that aggregate of demand which ultimately compels 
attention. In the case of isolated houses they have to do as 
best they can. And even in the villages, where there is a greater 
aggregate of potential voices, there are examples everywhere of 
the truth of the saying that what is " everybody's business is 
nobody's business," when that business is unfortunately not 
managed in a business-like way. 
Neglect of sources of water-suppli/ in Rural districts. — The 
truth of this latter statement is perhaps in no department of 
social economies more singularly exemplified than in that con- 
nected with the wise and prudent collection, the careful dis- 
tribution and the economical use of water in rural districts. It 
is not that the sources which have been so long neglected are 
neglected still ; it is not that unknown sources which might be 
reasonably conjectured to exist, are not attempted to be placed 
within the region of the known. But what is, perhaps, the 
feature which at once puzzles and pains the scientific philan- 
