UTILIZATION OF SEWAGE. 
673 
operation connected with farming which is not now acted 
upon through the advantage of improved machinery, to the 
great improvement of the land and the crops, and, I am 
happy to say, without the slightest injurious effect upon the 
advantages, the wages, or the comforts of the labouring 
population of the country. We have reaping machines, we 
have mowing machines, we have every description of ma¬ 
chines for acting on every sort of agricultural industry; 
and this year I see advertised, whether it is likely to be 
generally applied for or not, at the Royal Exhibition, no less 
important a thing than a milking machine, one which is to 
do at one time the duty of two pairs of hands; and the in¬ 
ventor assures us—how he knows it, 1 do not know—‘it is at¬ 
tended with the greatest possible pleasure and comfort to the 
cow/ ” 
After this his lordship dwells upon the economization of 
the sewage of towns :—“ To come to a more serious subject, 
I wish to call the attention of this great meeting, among which 
I hope there are many practical farmers and gentlemen con¬ 
nected with the land, to a matter which has not yet attracted, 
but I hope is beginning to attract, the attention it deserves— 
namely, the economization of the sewage of large towns for 
the purpose of agriculture. It is, perhaps, not a very savoury 
subject for after dinner, but as it is our agricultural meeting, 
I trust I shall be forgiven for saying something about it. I 
think it is more than twenty years ago that I was addressing 
the gentlemen of Manchester at a meeting of the Manchester 
and Liverpool Agricultural Association, and I made then, I 
will not say a very scientific or very elaborate, but a some¬ 
what lengthened statement, in which I dwelt upon the balance 
between production and consumption—between reproduction 
and compensation for waste, and so forth, and went rather 
studiously into the question ; and when I sat down Mr. Mark 
Phillips—I see my friend Mr. Ainsworth recollects the cir¬ 
cumstance—Mr. Phillips rose immediately after and said, 
e What the noble lord has said is all very fine, and moreover 
it is all very true, but all he has said amounts to this, that 
muck is money !' Now, gentlemen, if that be true, although 
no doubt there are many men who make ducks and drakes of 
their money, there is no reason why we should make ducks 
and drakes of our c muck/ There is no reason why we 
should not only waste what was intended for the benefit of 
our land, but that we should more than waste—that we should 
abuse for the deterioration and injury of our lands and rivers 
that which was intended materially to promote the increase of 
the earth's productiveness. That is a subject which is at- 
xxxv. 43 
