1881 .] The Sanitary Institute of Great Britain. 479 
boasted sewage-farm of Gennevilliers, near Paris. Here 
there are produced great store of vegetables, strawberries, 
&c., but they come in late, when such articles have become 
a drug in the market. “ Crops of all kinds had been grown 
by means of it (sewage irrigation).” Yet the committee ap- 
pointed by the Local Government Board in 1876 are very far 
from recommending it for “ crops of all kinds.” For white 
crops it must be applied with great caution, even in the 
driest weather. Potatoes are not benefitted by it ; with 
turnips the results are doubtful. The success has been 
greatest with rye-grass and mangolds. But it is very ques- 
tionable whether rye-grass would be profitably saleable if 
produced on the large scale. As to mangolds we would 
suggest the following test : — Take a ton of mangolds grown 
by ordinary methods of cultivation, and another ton produced 
by sewage irrigation. Store them up separately in pits side 
by side, and examine after a few weeks which lot is the 
sounder. From cases which have come to our knowledge 
we will venture to say that the sewage-grown roots will be 
found largely rotten. 
Here we are brought to the experiments of Dr. Smee, jun., 
which have never been refuted, and which doctrinaire sani- 
tarians meet with the “ conspiracy of silence.” It was found 
that the juice of sewage-grass was chemically different from 
the juice of normal grass, and entered more rapidly into 
decomposition. It was observed that the milk of cows fed 
on sewage grass putrefied earlier and became much more 
offensive than the milk of cows fed on animal grass. Irri- 
gationists dare not repeat these experiments and wish them 
to be forgotten. 
We fully concede that in climates where a dry season 
occurs, or where rainfall is small, — either absolutely or in 
proportion to evaporation, — irrigation may be, and often is, 
the one thing needful to convert a desert into a garden. In 
Britain, where injury from drought is rare, and where our 
crops suffer almost yearly from an excess of moisture, the 
case is very different. 
At one time it was contended that manures in general 
might be advantageously applied to the land dissolved, or at 
least Suspended, in water. Experience did not confirm the 
expectations held out, and this method of manuring land 
has fallen into disuse. Is not this a case in point ? 
As regards the results put forward by the Sewage Com- 
mittee of the British Association, to which Prof. Corfield 
refers, we have not forgotten that the independent members 
of that Committee found themselves compelled to resign, 
