Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-27
THE WASTE OF FERTILITY.

Victor Hugo, in that great work of his
which earned worldwide recognition as
political and social treatise rather than as
moral, sounded the first note of an economic
reform, which, third of century later, is
attracting the attention of progressive cities
by the declaration that "Paris throws awav
five million francs every year through its
sewers"
1t is probabl> Victor Hugo's powerful
statement OF the waste of fertility that takes
place through permitting a city's sewers to
empty into rivers was influential in the
result that it is no longer true in Paris; that
Berlin has followed the example of the
Partisan capital in utilizing the immense
fertilizing power that can be obtained from
sewage, and st the same time protecting the
streams from pollution; that other cities on
both sides of the ocean are awakening to the
Importance of preventing. at once, a
harbarous waste of an Immense food
producing power, and the scarcely less
uncivillzed waste of impregnating pure
water with foul and possibly disease.
bearing germs. Any intelligent mind can
recognize the factors of the problem. The
restoration Of the fertilizing power of the
sewage of city to the soil means the max
ing good of nearly all that is taken from the
soil for the sustenance of city. In other
words to whatever extent the soil is impov-
erished by raising from it the food for
given city, to nearly the same extent the
soil can be enriched, there or elsewhere. by
giving back to it the fertility contained in
the sewage. 1t is not difficult to perceive
that the failure to increase the productive
power of lands in the vicinity of ninety-nine
cities out OF one hundred amounts to annual
waste that IL only to be estimated by tens Of
millions.
There is hardly less importance in the
sanitary aspect of the case presented in the
preservation of water courses from pollu-
tion. Cholera epidemics have been traced
by following the courseof drainage from the
point where the disease originated; and
Pittsburg can testify from its own expert
ence that the same method of transmitting
typhoid fever has been demonstrated beyond
dispute. 1t is true that the precipitation
ahu ehos sono pioSC UciOrc tue COLI
tents of a sewer are carried fifty miles by
river can be trusted, under ordinary circum-
stances; but this is not always the
case. A food may carry the germs
of pollution far beyond that limit; and the
purity of the water for that fifty miles, or
even less distance, may be we'll worth pre-
serving. 1t is questionable whether the
sums necessary to take the water supply of
Pittsburg and Allegheny from point above
the possibility of pollution-if that were
done by the water system of both cities
would not exceed the entire cost of utilizing
the sewage, leaving the agricultural value as
clear profit.
1t is not SO easy for the inexpert mind to
see how the object is to be carried out in all
cases. Yet that it can be done is amply
demonstrated in the case Of the cities that
have attempted it. Paris is famous for the
productiveness of its sewerage farms, while
Berlin obtains profit of 2K per cent on the
cost of its system, in addition to interest on
the cost of the land which is irrigated and
enriched by its sewerage. Possibly the plan
of purifying sewage by chemical precipita-
tion would be the easiest to apply to cities