The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-03-12
ssraxc sr.,cm Of Farming,


usinp LIQUID manure is scarcely know in the
United States, but as the country grows
older more will be done in that direction. In
England town sewage has been extensively
employed to increase the fertility of the farm
Ing land adjacent, and it has proved as ben
eficial and profitable in many instances,
that farmers are to some extent adopting a
similar system in the use of the manure
made in their stables and yards. OF course
there is more or less opposition TO all inno-
vation upon old-time practices, and men like
the well-known English agricplturlst, j. j.
Mech, have been compelled to meet their
opponents with facts and practical demon
STATIONS of the value of the sewage system
ia order to keep alive an interest in it among
aericulturists. In one OF his late letters up.
on the subject to the Mark Lane Express, he
gives his own experience, as well as regrets,
and his reasons for not pressing the system
more extensively at the present time than
formerly. In speaking of what he once did
upon his farm, he says:
At one time I kept 30 pigs, 60 to 80 cattle
(young and old), and 200 sheep and lambs,
and on farm of 10 acres, with only six
acres of permanent pasture, and 100 acres of
it in cereals and pulse crops. But the fact
in the shape of mangle, ItaliAn rye grass,
cabbage, and kohl rahi, can be forced by
sewage. One acre in such crops thus does
the work of three or four. But then larger
amount of capital per acre is required to
keep so much stock, fed partly on purchased
food; 925 per acre would not be too much
tenants capital. Farm sewage from the
spared floors and tank goes on to the land
much stronger than town sewage especially
in damp or wet weather), and therefore not
much pumping is required.
f1n r,ninn Of or 4
vances, the spared floors and irrigation
will increase, as matter of farm profit; but
it requires the joint action of land owners
and tenant and capital
would say to those who speak lightly of
the value of town sewage: "How is it that
land worth, to rent, 15s. to 3Os. per acre,
very quickly, when sewaged, increases in
value from 100 to 500 per cent! Witness
Croydon and other places. How is it that the
once worthless Edinburgh sewaged meadows
are now let by public auction annually at
prices varying up to e44 per acre (the aver
age, believe, being e22 1851 for the six
summer months occupation and crops?"
could greatly enlarge on this subject.
Towns and cities are bound to pay the costs
of their sanitary arrangements. The farmer or
landowner has only to receive the sewage
and pay for it what it is worth to him. just as
he does for guano, artificial manures, or
London dung delivered to him.
1t amuses me to see how excited people get
about the sewage question, and it does not
astonish me that such vast sums should be
wasted by our town corporation, whose en-.
gineers' ideas fuctuate or very as much as the
colors of the rainbow. In fact, the question
is comparatively new one, and should be
got clear of setting tanks and manipulations
of costly and useless description. 1t is
really hydraulic matter-a simple question
OF pump to raise it, pipe to convey it, and
land to receive it. But the questions of
suitable crops are more difficult and varying.
No doubt the Italian rye grass should be on
ly for one year. Fields should be in certain
years free from irrigation, and under cultiva-
ton or rotation. The period of the growth
of the certain root crops has also to be consid-
cred.
The Edinburgh meadows are in perman-
ent pasture, and so receive the sewage every
year. l rember that Mr.. Marriage of Croy-
don found that as the rye grass died out the
land spontaneously produced permanent
pasture, and admirably the animals grew and
almost fattened on that alone, thus permit
ting minimum of expense. The land was
of course, light and porous. On heavy land,
cabbage, mangle, and kohl-rabi will absorb
large quantities of sewage. By and by we
shall all settle down to the utilization oftown
sewage, anu UNNECESSARILY ILe UeSL way VI 10.
ing it. Now there are too many varying
crotchets. The Essex reclamation scheme Ia
veryIgood.onelIh as been hungup for eight years
for want of capital, and so the Metropolitan
Board of Works holds fast the company's
e25, 900, which was deposited as security for
a complication of the job within period now
expired. The fact is the public don't believe
in sewage companies, any more than they did
in East India railways. The latter having
been made, and the former will have to be
done, under Government or corporate guar
antee of dividends, and then any amount of
money could be obtained.
Thei waste of town sewage is a gigantic
mistake, almost crime, for the production
of our food is las it used to be on the old cess
pool system; greatly dependent on the return
OF our consumption to the soil. just pro-
pose to the farmers of England to put into
rivers instead of on the land the voidance
from 100000 of their sheep, and they
would mistake you at once for a lunatic. A
human being is sheep, in weight and in
voidances, compares equally in respect to
manurial power. A Chinaman who could
see the contents of our sewers flowing to
waste would at once pronounce us to be I'M
wise and incapable in the matter of profit and
economy.