SOUTHEEN CULTIVATOE. 
149 
sheep-fold, and well may they deplore yard feeding, where 
the rains from the untroughed roofs may, in too many 
instances, thus take away nearly all their manure, ilr. 
Way, v/ith his usual care and exactness, has found that, 
taking the average of men, women, and children, each in- 
dividual of the population will, in the course of 24 hours 
contribute to the sewage of a town one-quarter of a pound 
of solid and three pounds of liquid excrement. A know- 
ledge of these facts shows us how trivial is the question of 
solid manure, for at a quarter of a pound each daily the 
total solid manure of 2,500,000 people in this metropolis 
will only weigh 279 tons. 
“ According to Mr. "Way, the excrement of each person 
is diluted with or distributed through 20 gallons or 1400 
times its own weight of water. Tt must appear singular to a 
disinterested observer that whilst farmers seek eagerly 
after every new manure, and are subjected to much im- 
position in such purchases, they appear to be apathetic on 
the question of town sewage. 
I think much of this neglect must arise from the fact of 
its being in a fluid state, for to the distance of 100 miles 
from London the solid manure of the metropolis is pur- 
chased by agriculturists at an expense of from 4s. Gd. to 
Gs. per ton, one-half of this cost being, of course, for 
freightage, and then another 30 to 50 per cent* must be 
added for cartage to the fields, with a further charge for 
turning over, spreading, plowing in, cfcc. Omitting the 
sanitary consideration, there can be no class so deeply 
interested in the question of town sewage as the British 
farmer. Those sewers carry av/ay to our rivers all the 
products which he has at so much care and cost produced 
for the food of the people. To repair the exhaustions caus- 
ed by these supplies, he rushes to Peru for birds dung, at 
an expense of some millions, whilst the very grave-yards 
of foreign nations are taxed to supply bones for his Tur- 
nips. The rapid increase of water closets and new sewers, 
with a more abundant water supply, are daily lessening 
the supply of human excretes in a solid form, diminishing, 
in fact, tanto, the ordinary channel of supply, so that 
shortly we may expect that only the stable manure and 
ashes of London will be available for agricultural purposes, 
whilst the weekly supply of 6000 or 7000 bullocks, 40,- 
000 sheep, and all the other vast solid and fluid consume- 
ables of the metropolis, from tea to turtle, will be floating 
down the sewers unheeded and unsolicited. 
“This cruel neglect can only arise from a disbelief of 
the value of such manure, or from a doubt of the possibil- 
ity ofapplying it economically. I purpose therefore this 
evening to go into statistical details with a view to venti- 
late the question, and to prove how easily such an opera- 
tion may be successfully carried out Vvith individual and 
general benefits. Water alone is manure : who can doubt 
this 1 Look to the costly water-meadows in various parts 
of the kingdom, and what farmer who hasa water meadow 
does not appreciate its great value to him, as producing 
early, late, and most abundant vegetation'? My own ex- 
perience, with two miles of pipes on my farm of 170 acres, 
has proved that fluid applications of manure are far the 
most profitable, and that their influence is quite as impor- 
tant and advantageous to cereal us to other crops. In 
proof of this I have threshed some fields of AVheat, produc- 
ing 6 quartei-s per imperial acre;* Oats, 13 quarters, and 
Barley, 8 quarters, which latter is 1 quarter more than I 
estimated in my balance sheet. Now, such productions 
as these on a naturally wretched soil, prove more than 
volumes of argument, and I have no hesitation in saying 
that had my neighbors to pay £2 per acre annually in in- 
terest for improvements over and above their present rent, 
* The '‘quarter” of English agriculturists is eight bush- 
els: so that the yield of wheat was 4S bushels per im- 
perial acre of 4 rods, each 46 perches or rods. — E ds. So. 
Cult. 
I to obtain similar results, they would be considerable gain- 
i ers. If it answers my purpose to lay down pipes, erect 
an engine, make tanks, erect pumps, and so on, for the 
in a fluid state with a large supply of water from my mere 
I purpose of applying the manure made on my farm spring, 
j surely it must equally and more certainly pay a farmer to 
receive back his corn, bullocks, sheep and other productions 
after they are done with at a very much smaller cost ; for 
their very essence will return to him accompanied by all 
the good things that metropolitan luxury can command 
from every foreign part. If we go into a statistical in- 
quiry of the v/eekly supply of London in ten, coffee, and 
sugar; wine, spirits, and beer; fish, flesh, and fowl 
(foreign and British); the tons of soap, and the thousand 
and one refuses of our manufacturers, gas-works, &c., one 
j becomes amazed at the fructifying power involved in such 
^ a consideration. The alkaline and granited solutions of 
our London pavement by trituration and abrasion, the 
smiits from our smoke, have all a considerable value. 
“ The mere wear and tear of shoe-leather has its value, 
as it grinds down the pavement into hollows. I appre- 
hend that the daily cost of feeding each individual in this 
metropolis, taking the average t)f rich and poor, young 
and old, would not be less than lOd. per day, or 37 1-2 
millions sterling per annum. Now in parts of Lincoln- 
shire it is the custom to value the manure at half the cost 
of the oil- cake consumed. On this principle, wdiich ap- 
pears to be a sound one, the agricultural value of the ma- 
nure from this 3714 millions of food ought to be some- 
thing very considerable, to say nothing of the food con- 
sumed by the animals of the metropolis. The rubbing, 
washing, and agitating which the solid excrement receives 
in passing through miles of tortuous sewers, cause it to be 
dissolved and pass away in a fluid state, which we may 
any day prove by an examination of the sewers’ mouths 
at low water. I think farmers cannot be aware that all 
the solid and liquid manure of men and animals is liqui- 
fiable by solution or suspension, and can be applied in a 
shower, sinking deeply into the subsoil of drained land. 
Perhaps I may be here permitted to explain why I con- 
sider this mode of application far superior to the solid 
form. If you make a transverse cut or opening in the 
soil, you will find that the British agricultural pie-crust is 
only 5 to 8 inches thick. The slips and railway cuttings 
plainly reveal this humiliating fact. Below this thin crust 
we see a primitive soil, bearing most unmistakeable evi- 
dence of antiquity and unalterability. The dark shades 
of the cultivated and manured surface have not been com- 
municated to the pale subsoil ; and we have evident proof 
thatsolid manure plowed in, in the ordinary way, exercises 
little influence on the subsoil. Nor can this be wondered 
at, when the plow sole has been polishing and solidifying 
tile floor at the same depth lor the last few centuries. Now, 
when I apply liquified manure (which means all the solid 
and liquid excrements of the farm animals mixed with 
water), it soaks deeply into the subsoil to the depth of 
the drains, which I have seen, on the very strongest clays, 
discharging the liquified manure at a depth of 4 and 5 
feet. Here, then, is the secret of my great crops on a 
miserable soil. The manure vitalises, warms, and chem- 
ically changes the miserable subsoil; the roots of the 
growing crops know this, and send down their fibres or 
mouths to appropriate and elaborate the subterranean 
treasures now for the first time placed at their disposal in 
an available condition. I could show you 20 loads of rich 
oil-cake bullock pudding, or manure ; I would mix it with 
water, apply it in a shower, and you should search the 
surface in vain for any proof of its whereabout. It has 
gone down to do its work. I will not drag you through 
all the details of the modus operandi of this method of 
manuring ; you may see it all any day you choose on my 
farm, or on any of those of others who are practising the 
same process. What I want you to believe is, that town 
