July 27. 
THE COTTACrE GARDENER. 
311 
been the basis of the sanitary laws ordained for the 
lsraelitish camp. 
The practice of the Flemish farmers is most successful 
in the use of liquid-manure, which they apply to the 
soil itself nearly as we have described They largely 
avail themselves of irrigated meadows also, near their 
rivers, which, however, on account of their lowness, are 
not found to he quite as healthy as they are fertile. 
On somewhat similar principles these thrifty people 
boil down the food of their cattle into a savoury mess, 
called “brassin,” consisting of cabbages, turnips, carrots, 
potatoes, &c., with a little cheap meal, perhaps, in addi¬ 
tion. Rut they also supply these same cattle with 
water, to which a little meal is always added to induce 
them to drink the more. 
As partly illustrating our views, we have already 
alluded to the characteristic national beverages of man¬ 
kind. It is not the tea itself, or the coffee, the lemon, 
the sugar, or the wine, that is the grand ingredient in 
the negus, lemonade, eau sucree, the cup of tea, or of 
coffee, in which we delight. All these are only so many 
contrivances for making water - drinking pleasant and 
popular under another name. Quite different aro these 
things from the economical and wholesome stews and 
consommes which we know so little about that we 
actually have not English names for the half of them : 
ollas, potaufues, bouillis, and such like, into which the 
poorest continental peasant contrives to dip his daily 
crust of bread. But these are not the drinks, they are 
the food of mankind, and should always he made of 
sufficient strength. Mere slip-slop will not do. An 
alderman, or a coalwhipper, may believe that turtle- 
soup, or “stout,” is both meat and drink for him; and, 
surely enough, the invalid, or the very young, who 
rather vegetate than live, may got on for a while with 
milk, barley-water, or chicken-broth; hut we incline to 
the doctrine, that drink and food are two different 
things, and that when for the simplest and most natural 
beverages we are induced to substitute mixed fluids of 
any kind, the more largely these are diluted the better; 
hut that any liquid food which is to he put in the place 
of solid nutriment should he of a certain strength, and 
not mere slip-slop. This rule is plain enough in regard 
to animal life and health; in regard to vegetation, it is 
not so easily laid down, because the food of plants is 
principally liquid—still it is practicable to draw a dis¬ 
tinction between manuring and watering plants. 
Of villain-service, Lyttleton gives us the following 
sample, in rude Norman verse :— 
“To carry the dung of his Seigneur 
Forth from his city to his manor 
-and spread it over his land*” 
See “ Coke on Lyttleton.” 
This most villanous service it has been attempted to put 
npon the purest element—by supplying each house in 
every town with so many gallons of water daily; collect¬ 
ing the waste, and using it to wash out all impurities; 
and finally, applying the whole of the resulting solution 
on the nearest convenient piece of land. But the earth, 
j and not water, is the best immediate receptacle for any 
I quantity of powerful manuring matter; whilst it would 
require a tract of country altogether immense to he laid 
partially under water, if it were intended to dilute to the 
/nil extent requisite Jot irrigating purposes all the offen¬ 
sive matters washed out by the sewers of a great city. 
I he low, marshy lands below London, and other ports, 
arc low and moist enough already, and difficult to drain 
—why, then, artificially add to their moisture? Un¬ 
wholesome vapours enough and to spare are even now 
given out from the present limited surface of the river 
Thames, the Mersey, the Tyne, and the Liffey; hut the 
nuisance would be greatly increased were there many 
square miles, or hundreds of miles, of land overspread 
with foul water, as has been proposed. 
Every case in which this doubtful experiment has been 
made, from Edinburgh to Croydon, remains to be cited 
as a warning rather than an example. Dr. Lyon 
Playfair found some vestiges of the barbarous and 
obscene custom on the banks of some of the dirty rivers 
flowing through the coke towns in Lancashire, on which 
he had to report. He condemned the practice. 
A certain number of small inland country towns have 
been reported on by Wm. Lee, Esq., in which great 
results, in an agricultural point of view, are said to have 
followed the application of town’s sewerage. But the 
same trustworthy and most pains-taking observer has 
published another report, with the view of shewing, 
amongst other things, how much of preventible disease 
exists in country places even; and, in this second 
report, the very villages and little towns above alluded 
to are each and all of them pronounced unhealthy. 
Reading appears to be one of the most unhealthy towns 
in the kingdom, and to be getting worse and worse 
every year, upon the authority of Mr. Lee. Dr. Baly 
says the same thing, in his report on cholera to the 
Royal College of Physicians:—“ Reading” we aro told, 
“is built on a log, surrounded by water-meadows. 
Thames on one side ; a canal on the other. Atmosphere 
remarkably humid." That such a place should have 
only had seventeen deaths from cholera, is very remark¬ 
able; but it is at some distance from, and elevation 
above, the sea. 
We have prepared some further remarks on the precise 
action of proper liquid-manures on the soil, and of 
irrigation in which the manure formed a notable ingre¬ 
dient. And it is impossible to dismiss this subject 
without some reference to the labours of Professor Way, 
and others, with a view to the deodorising, fixing, and 
impounding in a solid state, all the manure contained in 
sewerage. These subjects, however, we must defer to 
another article. For the present we must shut up the 
sluices— Sat prata biberunt (The pastures have drank 
enough). J. J. 
The July Meeting of the Entomological Society was 
held on the 3rd of the month, the President, Edward 
Newman, Esq., F.L.S., &c., being in the chair. The 
Secretary announced that since the last Meeting a 
donation of fifty species of British Lepidoptera, desi¬ 
derata to the Society’s collection, had been received from 
