The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1860-02-21 00:00:00

figrintiturt.

On Monday week, before a crowded meeting of the
London Farincrsi Club, Mr. Alderman afield read a
paper on Town *swage, copious extracts from which we
published in our lad issue ; and Mr. Sidney followed
him with a lahoured and sarcastic liarrangue iii proof of
the aasertion that the so-called sewage question is the
great humbug of the day. It was plain, as Mr. Mechi
had said, that grest difference of opinion existed on the
subject, and it was plain, as everybody in the room
could see, that the audience sided not with Mr. Idechi
but with his opponent in his estimate of the subject.
Mr. Williams. of Hayden, the owner and occupier of
some of the highest land in Berks and Wilts, who has
to lift well water 300 feet, did indeed lament his
inaliility to share with the tenanta of Thames-able
meadows the advantages of Leaden sewage, and illus-
trated its sense of its value if only as an irrigating
agent by saying that he had overcome natural obstacles
so far ai to °dahlia!u in spite of them a catch meadow
on hie farm. Mr. Cuthbert Johnson too urged the
thrstotie water meadows below Mansfield and the
rraigentinny meadows, near Edinburgh, as unquestion-
able illustration,' of the value of town sewage ; and Mr.
Mechi, in his reply, alleged tied the experience of Lord
E,umez at Watford has been satisfactory on all crops,
proving tluit lie gets iii increased fertility more than the
• year which Watford sewage costs ; and, on
the objection to such enormous Meetings of the land as
alone in sewage will convey a sufficient dressing of fer-
tainting matter, he very pertinently raid—you cannot
avoid 2,01.10. 3,000, or even 4,000 tons of water annually
per acre for wreaking in your manures in the natural
way whatever they may be. according as your annual
fall of rain is 20, 30, or 40 inches. Unquestionably on
undrained clay soils inch an abundant natural manuring
in the liquid way is often more than one wants • but on
light permeable soils, supplied with amide °titian and
efficient drainage. it might be doubled for ninny kinda
of crop without hann or with positive advantage ; and
in such circumstances the enormous sewage dreasinga
therefore, of which Mr. Lewes, for instance, speaks,
ought not to startle, or be taken as reducing to absur-
dity the whole affair.
. . . . .

On the other hand, however, we had gentlemen from
Rugby who assured us that those most intimately con-
nected with the agricultural use of sewage there would
indeed accept it fur application on auch land ma would
receive it by natural drainage, but they would pay
nothing for it. nor would they employ machinery to
raise. it to land which it could not naturally reach.
Of the attempt at Leicester to extract the nude' part
of sewage in the solid form, we learnt that the agricul-
tural verdict in that neighbourbool condemns the
resultant substance as azricultundly valueless or not
worth its carriage. At Mansfield it was shown that the
waten charged with sewage, which were used so benefi-
cially on the Clipstone meadows, were elually beneficial
lower down after they had deposited the filth which
they carried from the town. At Aldershot where the
refuse is in a less diluted form, scarlet fever and pleuro-
pneumonia, which have followed its application, have
more than wiped out its agricultural value. The chair-
man could speak from experionot of both, and of the

latter so severely that of Lis herd of 56, but 18 head
remained. And Mr. Thomas, of Lidlington, expressed,
what was probably the average feeling of the meeting,
tint, if the filthy water of our sewers could by natural
current reach meadow land, farmers would often go to
great expense in laying out their pastnres for the recep-
tion and diatribution of the pure water of a country
bro,k, would not be such fools as to neglect the
onnortimity. if they had it, of similarly using water
wlrell carries with it the refuse of the Loudon popula-
tion.
h the evening's
anntennb and sufficiently addr,-ssed to the known
3Srrauffincruieleitl wyu s;ii however,
wewvieti l: ersonality to i
prejudices of his audience—their known pre-judgment
of the question—to be agreeable, it could not fail of
obt.iniug a hearing. We do not think the larger
audience which the press will give it, unexcited by the
cheers and laughter of last Monday's meeting, will be
quite so acquiescent or wi gratified.
Baron Liehis has made public what everybody feels
to be an extravagant estimate of the effects of wasting
sewage ; but Baron Liebeg bad once (1845) condemned
the practice of land drainage is wasteful of the manures
applied to the *oil; everyboye knows that his judg•
meat then was wrong, and for all time coining, there-
fore, he is an untruatworthy agricultural authority.— !
Mr. litchi is a kind-hearted, genial, hospitable nian,
but, however he may be eatimated elsewhere, " here lie
in not considered an agricultural atithority."--Mr. Chad-
wick is evidently an untruatworthy authority, and the
reports and calculations of his aubordinates are erro-
1100t111 and untrue—Mr. Murton in preparing his
account of Mr. Teller's farm was " deceived and taken
in." These Ayrshire farina are no longer need as liquid
manure farms, and C..nning Park and Mire Mill have
changed their tenants. Mr. Johnson. our longest-
trusted and best known authority on fertilisers, is coin-
plimented on his faith in disparagement of his judgment,
and Mr. CdPi is held responsible for all the alleged out-
cry against the obtuseness and stupidity of the Engin/a
farmer consequent on Mr. Teller's account of his pro-
duce at one of Mr. Mechi's meetings.
These are the chief points of the address. Mr. Sidney
alone has never erred ; We was indeed " in doubt" 11011IC
years ago, hut, strange in PO confident a nature as his, 1
this had not resulted in any utteranee or assert.
which could now be quoted against lion. It could
hardly be said that he alone hat been always right, for
Mr. Giabonie of the Qmarlerlo Pwsiew was cited on
as superior to Roman agriculture ; Mons. Barrel
too WM quoted upon the failure of the so-called sewage
farms ; wtall the Beiti.d. fernier " without science" was
1•11,1.1 with p0r1.41.0 suipicittUA warmth.
It was unfortunate for Mr. Sidney's case that these so-
called sewage farms are not sewage farina at all. We
may especially refer to thew, in the midst of all this
personality, from which the reader will easily WiIIDOW
for hinmelf that which was obviously urged by personal
becauae it is nut at all likely that Mr. Sidney is
here anything more than the impartial historian, how-
ever liable lie may be like other historians to mistakes,
.. •

Whether or na, however, these farina could in order
be referred to in a discussion on town sewage, it is plain
that their history as given by Mr. Sidney himself is fatal
to the argument which he founded au their alleged
failure.

The tenant of Myre Mill was, it appears, while there,
merely the agent of another, and he has, it is alleged,
aucceefled since no better in ordinary farm management.
It is obvious then that his experience is no test of the
system which Mr. Sidney thinks that it condemns. Mr.
Teller, too, a merchant as well as • farmer, has lost Iris
property on his fann. According to Mr. Sidney bank
failures and trade losses were at hand to explain disas-
ter, but these are both ignored, and the only exolana.
tion porerible is the wasteful expenditure on sewage
operations !
There is no reason whatever to doubt the statements,
whether of Italian rye-gram produce or of doiry produce
which were published of this fans, Ur. Teller s state-
ment of enormous dressings of guano and gas-waste,
wsshed in by hundred of tuns of water, is willinzly
accepted, and used to ridicule Mr. Ilechi's ideas of the
value of poor London sewage, but statements on the
very same authority of the produce consequent on these
dressings are laughed to scorn. Mr. Morton had the
live stuck on the term, the stores of food piled and har-
vested on the premises, and the statententa of neigh-
bours in confirmation of the statements which he made
and whoever may he now be the tenant of Canning
Park, we entirely believe its produce when its the hands
of Mr. Teller, as Mated in the paper to which Mr.
Sidney alluded, rightly to claim • place upon the hut of
trustworthy agricultural maxims.
To return, however, from the consideration of per-
sonalties to the subject matter of lest Monday's discus-
it will we think be generally admitted that Baron
Liebig's karts hare been justly ridiculed, arid that the
English fanner bare been unjustly coumleiuimad 111 con-
nection with town sewage, which he ha hardly ever
yet hod the chance a using. That the waste of • lame
population. however, is valueless as manure is incredi-
Lle. And with our water meadows as compared with
ordinary pasturage on the one band, and with the
improved advantages°, our water drills as compared with
ordinary drills for applying manure on arable land on
the other before our eyes. we shall not readily believe
the assertion that the fertilising matter of our town.
waste loses its fertilisiirr nature by dilution with a rain-
fall however great, and with • water supply however
libend.—Ayrieafteral Gazette.

PELPINd Rivers nin FEEDING CATTLE.—Having
hail wine experience in the use of the !sniper in feeding
&Minsk the.. last toren years, I am enabled to state
that by the aid if this very clever cunt' ivanee 1 average
eight beasts fed upon this system over the previous
average fed by use of the old-fashioned turnip-slicer,
besides the great economy of using straw chaff instead of
hay, which was any practice for years previous to the
general introduction of this new instrument. Hy allow-
ing a fermentation of 12 hour. for the juices of the
pulped hullo perfectly to commix with the chaff, my
animals feed well upon the mixture. I allow each beast
when stalled a feed of 3 lbs. of meal at night ; this
simple feeding brings thrill fit for sale (ruin 12 to 16
weeks. The meal is an topial mixture of wheat, barley,
loans, and linsx-ed. with amine aromatic compound to
regulate the bowels—a well bedded house, warm and
veutilatvl, the use of the diode-brush freely with
pet feet cleanliness, i.e certain satisfaction. N.B.—The
proportion of straw chaff is I to 2 busiieLs of pulp when
stalled three tosses a day, and at night well bedded with
claao sweet draw; for store 2 limdiels of straw chaff to
one of pulp twice a day, with the gathering of the
waste or blown over food in the stall fed ; always plenty
to spare. Two men to tiulp, cut chaff with bionic, end
feed and attend upon pigs; wages Ms, a man • week,
thus charging ls. per bead each beast for attendance. I
fitel that of the opined that was in the field during the
severe frost in October, those suffered t that had
been partially etrippeil of their leaved, while those that
had not been through thia ordeal were greatly tamed.
Many of ley neighbours clomped their roots in the field,
covering them only with mou!xl ' • on opening this clumps
they final the mange' completelydecomposeil ; if • little
straw, or fern, or fume, hail been used as a covering
previews to the mould being added they might have beau
partially saved.—Berkatire Amiens.