676 
UTILIZATION or SEWAGE. 
some of the finest vegetables I ever saw in my life; and I 
ought to say, that the annual expenditure attending the 
burning; of the bog-soil and the cleaning out of the tanks 
amounts to about .3015, in return for which we are able to irri¬ 
gate nine acres of land with the success w T e have reached in 
the course of the present year, and with the result I have 
mentioned to you in the shape of produce raised upon soil 
which never yielded anything before, except stunted heath, 
in the memory of man. And so rich, after this double irri¬ 
gation, is the sewage we obtain, that the tenant of an ad¬ 
joining farm takes from us the waste, which leaves our land 
and flows upon his, and applies it for the purposes of irriga¬ 
tion ; and the owner of that farm, in return, allows us the free 
use of a valuable spring of water. Now, although this is an 
experiment upon a small scale, I hope it has not, under the 
circumstances, been out of place in me to trouble you with it. 
Whatever may be done on a small scale, I believe, where cir¬ 
cumstances are favorable, may be done equally well upon a 
large scale ; and I believe, if men sedulouslv set themselves to 
work to ascertain the means of solving this great and most 
important national problem, they will not only succeed to a 
very great extent, but will attain, even under adverse circum¬ 
stances, very beneficial results. So far as we have ascertained, 
for the purposes of making use of this irrigation, it is neces¬ 
sary, or, at all events, it is a great saving of expense, to have 
such a level as that the water may descend by its own gravity, 
and it is also necessary that you should have a great supply 
of water. It is further necessary that the land, if it is in¬ 
tended for arable purposes, should be well ploughed and pul¬ 
verised ; and I believe I may also say, that no doubt it has a 
much greater effect upon light lands than it has upon heavy 
lands, and, moreover, a much greater effect upon grass lands 
or upon vegetables than it has upon arables, and that descrip¬ 
tion of produce. But in order to show that I am not talking 
for the mere purpose of talking, and without any practical 
effect, I wish to conclude the observations I have made upon 
this subject by saying, that, so thoroughly am I convinced of 
the importance of pushing this science much further than it 
has been pushed hitherto, that I am ready to give a premium 
of £ 100 to the first person, or to the first company, which 
shall have successfully—by which I mean also profitably to 
themselves, because otherwise it could not serve for an ex¬ 
ample—utilised, to use the common phrase, the entire liquid 
sewage of a district comprising not less than 4000 inhabi¬ 
tants; I mean any district within the limits of either the 
North Lancashire or the Liverpool and Manchester Agricul¬ 
tural Societies, If I should live so long, and be so happy as 
