The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-02 00:00:00

EFFECTS OF RAILWAYS ON

AGRICULTURE.
The advantages which have accrued to agricultural pro-
duce from the facilities afforded by railway communication
of conveying their produce to market, as well as the reci-
procal advantages derived by the consumer, have been
rendered apparent wherever the railway system has been
adopted. In the neighbourhood of large cities, such as
London, Paris, and New York, the fact is particularly re-
markable. It has been proved that since the opening of
the London and Birmingham, the Great Western, the
South-Western, and the Eastern Counties lines, the
metropolis has been better supplied with milk, butter,
cheese, poultry, and the general articles of farm produce,
than at any former period. Nor has it been only with re-
spect to the quantity supplied that the advantages of
rapid communication have been demonstrated. The
quality, too, of the articles referred to has undergone pro-
portionate improvement, and it is well known with respect
to milk, that that article as now sold in the metropolis,
is no longer of a quality so artificial that it might bo
doubted whether, in strict propriety of language, the
name milk could be applied to it. From the means of
transport which are now so abundantly within their
reach, the farmers of Essex, Warwickshire, Oxford-
shire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hampshire find
a rt ady market in the metropolis for articles which
they formerly never dreamed of sending thither. In
former times London was chiefly supplied with arti-
cles of a perishable nature from a circuit comprehending
parts of Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Surrey, with a
radius of not more than three or four miles. The speed
of railway conveyance being seven or eight times that
by cart or waggon (in the times referred to the means
of conveyance) the consequence has been, that such
articles are now supplied to the metropolis from
a circuit seven or eight times the length of
that which formerly supplied them ; consequently
the land now available for the metropolitan markets
is from forty-nine to sixty-four times its former
extent. The profits accruing to dairy farmers from
their sale of milk have increased 300 or 400 per
cent., and the number of cows now reared for the
purposes of the dairy, are eight to one what they
were formerly. Equal encouragement has arisen
from the same cause for the cultivation of vege-
tables of every denomination. But the advantages
of railways to farmers are almost more remarkably
evinced in the superior supply which now exists
of animal food to the metropolis. Before the com-
mencement of the railway system, the animal food
supplied to the London market was not only defective
in quantity, but unwholesome in quality—comparatively,
at least, with what it might have been had the tract from
which it could have been supplied been rendered more ex-
tensive. Formerly, cattle from a long distance were always
driven to Smithfield ; now they are conveyed in railway
carriages adapted for the especial purpose. More or less
injury was always sustained by the animals from the
fatigues of the journey, and their value was considerably
lessened owing to the inferior quality of the meat from
being slaughtered in a diseased state. But it was not
merely the fatigue of travelling which injured the
animal, but also the absence from its eccustomed pasture.
The transport of calves and lambs from a greater dis-
tance than 30 miles was formerly altogether impractic-
able. Now, however, these and other live cattle ere
brought from all parts to London, in as many hours as
they formerly took days to travel. To convey cattle
without injury, not only speed, but evenness of motion is
indispensable, which two requisites are answered by
railway communication. The same results have
been shown in connexion with the lines which now
diverge from different parts of Paris. A French-
man consumes, on an average, triple the quantity of
milk consumed by an Englishman ; and from the
facilities which the farmer, to a distance of 40 or 50 miles
from Paris, now enjoys of conveying his produce thither,
Parisians are supplied with abundance of their favourite
article. Fruit and all kinds of vegetables, grown at a
distance, also find a new market in Paris ; while the
increase which has taken place within the last two
years, in the French capital, in the consumption of
butcher's meat, also forms a no less interesting subject
of observation as springing from the same cause. Cattle
are now brought to the Parisian market from Brittany.
and Normandy by railway, as also from all other loca-
lities with which the same means of communication
exist. A New York paper makes known the fact, that
the factitious value which tracts of land immediately
surrounding that city maintained previous to the esta-
blishment of railways, has been since moderated, and a
portion of their advantages transferred to the more re-
mote districts ; thus equalising the value of agricultural
property, and rendering it, in a great measure, inde-
pendent of local circumstances.

SUMMER CHOLERA-ITS CAUSES
There is a much more efficient and much more proba-
ble cause than either pickled salmon or plums. Under
the streets of our best-drained towns and cities there is a
widely extended magazine of miasmata. That magazine
is hidden from our view, yet it is übiquitous. It enters
every court and alley, and during the heat of summer it
is put into fearful activity, and night and day evolves
many thousand cubit inches of foul air; and that foul air
is often imperceptible to the senses. Nobody suspects it
is evolved and ascends from every gully-hole, until pre-
viously to or during rain, when it is held in solution in
the aqueous vapour of the atmosphere, and becomes per-
ceptible to the sense of smell. People will answer you,
if you inquire the condition of their house drainage,
" Oh, it is very good ; the drain in the back kitchen
never smells except against rain ; it is very sweet in-
deed." Yet night and day a miasm is ascending from
the cesspool called the sweet drain, through the sink-
hole in that " sweet back kitchen," and infecting the air
of the whole house. But wiether it stinks or not it is
of very little consequence ; it may have no smell, or no
unpleasant smell, and yet be a deadly poison. There is
no smell in pure carbonic acid gas, and it is only an in-
nocent odour of rgarlic that characterises the fumes of
arsenic ; yet both these are deadly things. What is
offensive to the sense of smell is injurious to the system,
or some part of it ; that is generally true ; but the
reverse is not true ; you cannot say that what is
inoffensive to the sense of smell is not injurious. I
hold it, then, as an established principle, that
the malaria arising from the abominable sewers,
especially in the metropolis, where water-closets and
crowded churchyards„ abound, is the fruitful source of our
summer epidemics ; and you may rely upon this, that
wherever you have cholera or typhus epidemic, there you
have is source of malaria. I always inquire into this
matter, and I always give the sufferer or sufferers a
practical lesson in hygiene, whether they be poor or rich.
You find a family suffering from cholera or fever, and
there is a filthy drain close by. You say to the head of
that family, " Would you like to know why you all have
the cholera? It is that abominable drain." The answer
will be, "It is really most nauseous, sir, but our landlord
will do nothing." " Well, then," answer, " pay a pound
or two a-year more rent, in a healthier spot, where the
landlord will do something ; you will more than save the
sum in escaping sickness." Now, this is away of effect-
ing sanitory reform without an Act of Parliament, and a
very effectual way too.—Medical Gazette ; Dr, Lay-
cock's Lectures. )