The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-05 00:00:00

contrast safely enough the present meeting with
the first meeting of the Royal North Lancashire
Agricultural Society which I attended—l. believe
the first of its institution-15 years ago, in the year
1847. I will not trouble you with any detail of
figures, but I would just mention that in the year
1847, the receipts of admission to the shoW yard
were £63 18s. In 1861, the receipts were 13757
and I am told that, notwithstanding the obstacles
which were interposed by the state of the weather,
the receipts to-day are expected to considerably ex-
ceed that amount. But when I say that the receipts
I of 1847 were only £63 18s. I am bound, as an old
member of the society, to say that I think the show
was very dear for the money. (Laughter.)
I recol-
lect that upon that occasion the show was in a small
field in the neighbourhood of Lancaster. The
stock exhibited included a few very inferior
brood mares, some very moderate hacks, and I
doubt if there were any sheep. There was
a very small and inconsiderable number of
cattle, which belonged to the old long-horned
and I may say long- haired breed—(laughter)—few
specimens of that almost unknown description of
cattle, respecting which there was then great con-
troversy, which is now known as the short-horn.
That was the state with regard to the exhibition of
stock in the year 1847, and I leave those who have
had an opportunity of seeing the stock to-day to
say how great is the progress which agriculture has
made in this country. It is not in stock alone, but
in every respect, that within the last 20 or 25 years
agriculture has made a satisfactory progress which
would vie with that made in any other description of
free industry. It would be a very curious statistical
problem to solve to ascertain bow many more acres
of land, by the removal of unnecessary fences, have
been gained to the county of Lancaster during these
last 20 years, and how much addition hasbeen made
to the value of land by the comparatively small sums
laid out in that all-essential A B C of agriculture,
namely, thorough drainage. Within the last few
days I have seen districts of country which certainly
would have been very much improved by the ex-
penditure of a couple of hundred pounds in tile
drainage. I must say the improvement is one highly
creditable to the country generally, and I have no
doubt highly remunerative both to the landlords and
tenants of the county. (Applause.) While I speak
of drainage and the improved value given to the land
by it, let me also mention incidentally a matter which,
perhaps, has not been so specially brought forward,
but which is of the greatest importance. It is not
only upon the arable lands of this country, but
upon the pastures also that drainage must have a
beneficial effect ; and more especially upon those
pastures devoted to sheep, the cultivation of which
is greatly increased during the last few years ; and
it is found that the drainage of the land produces
perhaps greater effect upon the feeding quality of
grass for sheep than upon any other description of
produce. Lancaster has been a county in which
it has been supposed sheep could do no good. I
have been assured, that there have been exhibi-
ted a number of Leicesters and Shropshire Downs,
which for quality and value would be a credit to any
county. If there is any point in which agriculture
has made greater progress than in drainage, it is in
the extended application of machinery and sciences.
(Hear, hear.) I recollect not many years ago the
late Sir Robert Peel was talking to me about the
prejudices of farmers. He said he had announced
upon one occasion, that, as an agricultural prize, he
would give an iron plough, He was surprised
there were not many competitors, and he called
upon one of his own tenants for an explanation. He
said, " Why, you see, Sir Robert, we farmers have
a notion that iron ploughs breed weeds."
(Laughter.) I am happy to say that, although
agriculture in this country is not always spoken of
in the complimentary terms, even in the year 1847
we were not in that state of primitive ignorance. I
wish to call the attention of this great meeting to
the subject of irrigating the land by the sewage of
great towns. It is now about 20 years since I
pressed the subject at Manchester upon the atten-
tion of the Liverpool and Manchester Agricultural
Society, and I made perhaps not a very scientific
but a lengthened statement, iu which I dwelt upon
the balance between production and consumption,
atnd nnmnanfalitiOn for Tri.tq. Apo
When I sat down Mr. Mark Phillips rose and said,
" What the noble lord has said is all very fine, and
also very true, but all he has said amounts to this,
Muck is money.'" (Great laughter.) If that be
true, although no doubt their are many men who
make ducks and drakes of their money, it is no
reason why we should make ducks and drakes of
our muck—why we should not merely waste
what is for the benefit of our land, but abuse, for
the deterioration of our streams and rivers, that
which was intended materially to promote the
agricultural production of the land. (Applause.)
It is a subject which is attended with very great
difficulty, but it is beginning to attract a great
amount of attention. I only wish to remind my
friends that the subject was not overlooked by me
twenty years ago ; and if I should not be unduly
trespassing on your time, I will venture to call your
attention shortly to a practical exemplification of
the benefit of attending to this subject which has
come under my own observation. It may attach,
perhaps, additional interest to the observations I
am about to make when I tell you that the novelty,
if novelty there is in the discovery and application
of the means, belongs not to me, nor to any man
now living, but exclusively to the practical know-
ledge and experimental observation of his late
lamented Royal Highness the Prince Consort. He
had applied his eminently practical mind to this
subject, among others, and had made various expe •
riments upon it, the result of one of which we have
had the opportunity of seeing, and noticing the
important effects produced by it upon the herbage
at Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. That to which I
am about to call your attention is an experiment
which has been recently carried on according to the
plan of his Royal Highness, on a small scale cer-
tainly, at Wellington College. I must first tell you
that the population of the college is about 300 souls,
and there is attached to it a very large laundry for
doing the washing of the whole establishment. I
mention this, not as an unimportant fact, because
it is important to them. In this way a very large
supply of water is obtained, and those who know
anything about it know that for the production
of vegetables and the cultivation of flowers there
is nothing so good as the
i;applicationoag n. d aWew
eho
have
had
ae d soap-
sudsthetousual cesspool
isn
.aoturthoepecorlalteigoens
Was
the refuse of wash*
and
the overflow-
ing
liquid manure from those cesspools.
depend upon
plan of the Prince Consort, we con-
ducted of the
-d a short distance from the college
Following the
a tank for. the purpose of filter-
this ETV
found in all former experiments
through pipes into
liquid introduced. at the
iug it. It has been
prevent the Coll-
in filtering that if the
he solid matter in it would
top of the filtering bed the
a short time form a cake and
tinuance of the process of filtration. The novelty
introduced by the Prince Consort was that all came
in, not at the tor, but from the bottom of the filter-
ing h the watery part
-e", and so, by its own force, -
solid part
made its Way upwards through the
bed, leaving the
at the bottom.
three separate covered to the
wooden frames, each
depth of three or f • our inches with burned b
The water gradually
lowest frame to the second, the
The bed consisted of
forced its way throughl, that
to the upper one. It then fell
and then through -
divisionalier one
sepa-
rating the larger filtering bed overfro m a
a smaller
m
and dropped to the bottom of the second bed, in
which it rose through three frames or trays of
burned bogsoil, as in the first instance. As
each of
the trays absorbed the manure it was removed, and
a fresh tray was substituted. The original expense
of the tank and pipes leading from it was £ll3.
In the course of nine months, during which the
college has been open, we have collected from the
bogsoii placed on the frames an amount equal to 96
tons of the best manure, equal at Bs. a ton to £3B
a year, or one-third in the first
year of the whole
ever expense Gf the tank we established. That, how-
'as an object attained by the way. Our
principal object was to obtairitheliquid manure for
the purpoees of irrigation. T
give you an idea of
the soil at the college, when
e purchased the land
we gave £lO an acre for the fee simple of
were told that we had given twice
as muc. it, and
was worth. It is of the worst descrit io
of
_h as it
n heath--
a thin layer of worthless sand above p
a mass of gravel,