New-York tribune., 1869-01-14
sents it, we should give thanks that we are,
for the present so thoroughly rid of it.
CITY lSEWAGE.

CITY SEWAGE
The soil of many States is in the process OF
exhaustion that our cities and towns may be
supplied with food Not less than 100000 OF
people live in our cities, and year after year,
through every day and every hour, food IN
some form-food which has abstracted the most
valuable elements in the soils in transit to
the city markets. 0ne-seventh OF all the 1000
produced in the country is consumed In cities;
in other words, as much is consumed IN seven
years as is produced from every field, garden,
and meadow of the whole United States IN one
year-that is grain vegetables, fruits. poultry,
sheep, hogs, cattle, and whatever else is re-
ouired for food. Some may be surprised at this
estimate: still this is understated rather than
oyerstated but it is surprising that, with so
few exceptions not to be worth naming, this
whole product of the agricultural industry OF
our whole country, and containing within IL
self vast amount Of fertility, descends INTO
the city sewers, finds entrance into rivers, and
thence into the ocean, where 1t is lost-at least,
lost until, in some new geologic age, an ex-
hausted country, no longer able to sustain the
human race, sinks to form new ocean bed,
when that which is now the ocean floor rises
70 give other lands fresh fields and pastures
new
Recent English reports show sewage to be of
such value that land to which it is applied
rents from 500 to $500 year, and indeed,
there can be no more question as to its value
than as to whether the materials of which it is
composed contain the elements of fertility.
There may be questions as to the best modes
will no
culties-that is, engineering skill will be re-
quired-and, of course, there will be opposition
by those more gifted in repelling useful truths
than in receiving them. Still, the question de-
mands not only consideration but solution, that
as people and as a race, we may hold our
own, by arresting the frightful waste of fer
tlity. Only small proportion of the capital
and skill which have been required to con-
struct means of transportation to the city VIII
be required to restore to the cultivated earth
that which costs the labor, care, and best ener-
gies of our people to produce.
Sewage is of especial value on light sandy
soil, and as many cities are situated on
shores there is much soil of this character i'll
their vicinity, while there is no land near any
of our cities which, by the use of sewage,
WOulu DOJ ltCtlfC such lIlNltlcCu pOhNA VI pa"
duction as to be able to yield large per cent
of the food which the people require. Take,
for instance, our own city. With common engi-
neerlng skill our sewers could be emptied into
one main channel or secondary reservoir,
whence, by such pipes as conduct the Croton,
transfer could be made to the Jersey shore
thence, passing down the west side of the Kill
on-Kul a few miles, the thirsty sands of South
jersey will be reached We are apt to think our
supply Of sewage ineXhaustible, but that re-
gion would absorb it ALL There is not a State
in the Union but would contribute something,
while those States richest in humus and yege-
table mold will add to the rich deposits; and
this not atftful periods, but through every day
of the year; and the stream would rival the fer
tile Nile, which also gathers tribute from vast
interior. What Egypt has been and is, South
jersey by this means may become, and continue
to be so long as New-York stands, and at no
greater investment than such as has established
n single and even inferior line of transit. Be-
side South jersey, the vast barren plains
of Long Island can be made to rival the Sciota,
Wabash, or Mississippi bottoms; and when the
whole system shall have been established, and
the circulation, so to speak, completed, New
York will, to a great degree, be independent
of distant regions, for it will be bordered 10y
region of intense fertility, every rood of which
will support man.