200 
with their food. To the long straw is to be objected that 
it is difficult to remove in the cleaning. Notwithstanding 
my experience, it is difficult to propose a material that shall 
be unobjectionable, and I can only suggest that straw cut in 
j four inch lengths be tried, as being a dry, clean, material 
; easily removed.—W. Cutter, Bathampton, Bath. 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF 
ENGLAND. 
| A Weekly Council was held at the Society’s House, in 
Hanover Square, on Wednesday, the 20th of June. 
Sewerage Matter. — Professor Way, the consulting 
chemist to the Society, favoured the Council with his views 
on the management of the sewerage matter of towns, and 
I its agricultural application, reserving for the paper he was 
preparing on the subject, for the Society’s Journal, the full 
details intended by him to illustrate and confirm the views 
in question. He first referred to the fallacious pretensions 
of many plans proposed for the extraction and concentration 
of manuring matter; and then explained the sanitary 
management of excrementitious matter in Belgium and in 
France, particularly noticing the recent valuable report made 
to the Board of Health by Mr. Bammell, on the arrange¬ 
ments on this subject in Paris, and to the Poudrette manu¬ 
facture in that capital. Ide then proceeded to explain the 
difference in reference to the London sewerage, on account 
of the large amount of water which entered into its com¬ 
position. He estimated this supply of water at 44| railllions 
of gallons a day, and considered that all excrementitious 
matter, sooner or later, found its way in a comminuted state 
into this large mass of sewerage. He regarded rain-water, 
too, as being highly charged with manuring matter; and 
detailed some interesting results of experiments made on 
street-water as it rushed to the gully-lioles of the sewers, 
which showed it to contain a much larger amount of soluble 
salts, especially salts of potash, than sewerage water, and 
proved that such washings from the streets improved rather 
than impaired the manuring quality of the sewerage water 
generally. The sewerage matter was in two states:—1. In 
solution; 2. In suspension. He explained that the solid 
matter in sewage was only the woody or fibrous refuse of 
solid excrement, while ammonia and the more valuable 
substances were retained in the liquid form. At present he 
was aware of no method to convert sewage into solid manure 
that would pay. It had been said that the liquid left after 
the removal of the insoluble portion of sewage, was “ in¬ 
odorous, tasteless,” and might be thrown into the river; 
such a result might fulfil sanitary but not agricultural 
conditions. The question, however, was a double sanitary 
and agricultural one; and the two interests combined would 
greatly facilitate their general and special objects, which 
were much retarded while each party stood aloof. Professor 
Way then detailed the various substances proposed for the 
filtration of sewage, and the various precipitants to effect 
the subsidence of its grosser matters; he referred to the 
: plans of Higgs, Moffat, Stotliert, Wickstead, Ilerapath, and 
j Hover; to the peat-charcoal filter of the sewage manufactory 
I company at Fulham; and to gypsum, sulphates of iron, 
i magnesia, and zinc; the alum salts, burnt clay, and peat 
1 and animal charcoal, as precipitants and filtering substances 
j respectively. But no plan was efficient that does not include, 
1 in the solid matter obtained, the various salts dissolved in 
| the original liquid. The milk of lime employed in Higgs’ 
i process clears the sewage from colour, but leaves in it nearly 
all the organic matter. London water, too, was hard, already 
holding carbonate of lime in solution ; when quicklime was 
added, a large precipitate, consisting of double the quantity 
of chalk, was thrown down, and thus increased, by so much 
comparatively inert substance, the solid matter obtained, 
30 grains of chalk being obtained in this manner from 
every gallon of sewage liquor. He would prefer separating 
the sewage matter by itself; but even that would only 
contain from 21 to 3 per cent, of ammonia, and would not 
pay. He recommended farmers to avail themselves of the 
strongest and best manures, as occasioning less expense in 
the original cost, carriage, storing, and application. Many 
July 14. 
methods had been proposed to facilitate the mechanical 
separation of sewerage matter and to deodorise it; but in 
all these, the valuable salts were left behind. Beat and 
other charcoal did not arrest ammonia, as had been supposed, 
but absorbed it as gas by a peculiar power of surface which 
the charcoal exercised; but water, having a tendency to 
unite with ammonia, washed this gas out again; charcoal, 
however, retained the solid matter, and deodorised it, but 
did hot separate the soluble salts. He then referred to the 
application of burnt clay on soils to the purpose of absorbing 
manuring matter; but showed that the effect of carrying 
out manure to the field was very different from that of 
bringing a portion of soil to the manure, the relative propor¬ 
tion in this case deciding the result. Soil, in fact, could not 
be used as a filter; it could not economically be taken 
into the town and then out again into the fields. No 
plan, he believed, was at present known by which the 
whole of the sewerage matter could be obtained in a solid 
state, excepting by evaporation ; and that of course was out 
of the question. Prof. Way was aware that every one who 
took a deep interest in any subject, looked with a particular 
favour on views which he himself entertained and had 
originated ; and accordingly he felt a natural interest in the 
successful application of the silicates, to which he had often 
made reference in that room: he really believed; however, 
that these substances, or something analogous to them, were 
the only likely means by which the potash and the other 
saline matters could be removed from the sewage liquor in 
a solid state. But lie considered it unwise for farmers to 
make manures, wdiile they could purchase them at a cheaper 
rate than they could themselves manufacture them. Un¬ 
fortunately those low lands that could most easily be reached 
by water, were the very kinds that least required manure. 
Liquid sewerage, as a whole, he thought offered the largest 
prospect of success, as the whole of the manuring matter 
was, in that case, utilised. A disagreeable odour w r as 
occasioned by its sulphuretted hydrogen, but there was 
no great loss of manuring value. The usual outlets of 
sewers naturally occurred in those lower levels which, as he 
had just remarked, least required manuring, being beds of 
river alluvial deposits, consisting of clay nicely tempered 
with sand. The poor thin high grounds, particularly in 
sandy districts, were those which most required the aid of 
manure. Pumping the sewage up again was the only plan; 
but half-way measures would be a failure. The farmer 
should have the power of using it on levels as high as the 
towns. In some of these, as Exeter, situated on a circuit of 
hilly ground, it would be waste of power to bring the sewage 
down from them to the lower outfall, and then to pump it 
up again; but it might, he thought, be economically employed 
in contour lines around such towns. But generally speaking, 
the distribution of liquid-manure, to be fully available, 
should be effected on an extensive system; it was ridiculous 
for a place like Edinburgh, with its large amount of inhabit¬ 
ants, to supply liquid-manure for only a few thousand acres; 
such excrementitious matter oughttoyield manuring elememts 
for hundreds of thousands of acres, if applied at once to 
the land. 
POULTRY-YARD REPORT. 
You ask for this year’s experience in rearing and manage¬ 
ment of poultry. Mine is not very important in character, 
neither, at present, have I a large number in the yard; but 
such as it is, I give it you correctly, for the insertion in your 
paper, if you please. 
Eggs produced from the 5th of February to the 5th of 
June, from 
2 Cochin hens. 108 
5 White-faced, &c., Spanish. 25(i 
3 Spangled Hamburghs, from the 25th of 
February to the 5th of June. 181 
The Cochin hens were in their nest, and with young, for 
six weeks of the above time; none of the others have been 
broody. 
Subsequent to the 5th of June, my Spanish have not been 
so regular, and the Cochins have again been mothers ; but 
the Hamburghs continue laying an egg each nearly every day. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
