SEWAGE FARMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 261, 22 February 1877, Page 2

SEWAGE FARMS.

The following extract from the columns of the Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser will be found, just now, of interest : —" Writing in the last number of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, Mr. Morton gives a graphic description of the systems of sewage distribution and agriculture generally pursued on some of the best-known sewage farms —those of Cheltenham, Leamington, Chorley, Doncaster, Tnnbridge Wells, and Bedford. Mr. Morton has also visited almost all the other sewage farms of the country, besides having had the management of one of them for two years. The conclusions which he has come to are, therefore, deserving of careful attention, and they are not very encouraging as to the value of sewage .'.r.anuring. At the same time, Mr. Morton maintains that 'it maj r be held as certain that the agricultural remedy for the sewage nuisance is alone trustworthy. None of the chemical methods having to deal with a putrescible liquid can send it from them in a non-rmtreseible condition. The lessons which Mr. Morton thinks may be learned from what he has observed are so important that we give them at length :—' The first lesson, then, that these and all other stwage farms may teach us is, that sewage —a very poor and weak manure—will not bear a heavy cost for distribution. The dirty water must indeed, at whatever cost, be brought to the land, whether by pumping or by gravitation ; but that is the business of the town which desires its dePtecation. It must be brought to every field upon the farm, but thcre:ifter it must be distributed in the cheapest possible way. Plough-made furrows are enough to regulate the flow whei-e sufficient slopes naturally exist; and where thfi land is flit, it must, be laid out, after efficient drainage lias been provided, in wide ridges, the suffice soil being kept uppermost. The lighter, poorer, and more p -rvious soils are to be preferred* and these are to be so laid out in lands that tho sewage shall trickle downwards from a furrow along the rilge line, reaching the foo L . of the surface \v-h*&h. it has to feed on either side, but sinking away in the process imtil there is nothing left foe t'-e mi; I way furrows to romov.\ Ir, is possible thus to the surface that a single man mav be able, as I have s\id, to distribute 5,000 tons of sewage rhvly. The cost of labor rules here as in mostother agricultural sneenlafcions ; :v -jl it may well be than a town shall r-rplve, after having thus la.' I ont its sewage farm, to caver it with a coat of permanent "rasa, satis.ied with thus ensuring the defteeation of its sewaga at a minimum annual expense ; and regardless of the possibility, fit a somewhat greater expense of labor, of obtaining from the sewaged area a much larger agricultural return. Ordinary grazing and occasional mowings of land permanently laid down, after being properly arranged as a sewage farm, would very likely yield revenue enough to pay the labor bill and rent, which is what few sewage farms at present do. T lis, however, would be a very poor result of sewage irrigation ; and it would never> be

satisfactory to throw to war.ic 200. ounces of ammonia per annum from every individual of a town r>oonlation —regardiess of: its enormous fertilising power even though \v? had succeeded in onr first purpose of destroying its power of creating a nuisance. The second lesson which agricultural experience hitherto of town sewage teaches applies to those who are bent upon making this farther use of it. They must not think thac those plants which most require its ammonia and phosphorus and 'potash are necessarily plants best fitted for their purpose. They must cho.ose such plants for* asi can prosper under the enormous quantities of water by which in sewage these ingredients are conveyed. Italian rye-grass is their principal resource, but cabbage, mangel wurzel, garden crops, and all other succulent growths, are suitable. It is not impossible that we may hereafter hit upon a crop rotation, including as its chief feature Italian rye grass for summer use, and mangel wurzel for winter use, with sale enouidi of these and other produce for the purchase of whatever fuud materials are requirod, by which the sewage of a town may be converted wholly into milk. And a most desirable and wholesome upshot this would be. The outcry that has been raised against the wholesnmsness of food which has beau grown, whether at first or". from sewage dressings, ha 3 nowhere been justiued by experience, Edinburgh for many generations lias been fed on'"sewage-produced milk. Methyr has been fed to a large extent for several years on the garden stuff produced abundantly upon Mr, Bailey Benton's filtering . ground, which is daily soused with the ordinary agricultural dressing. The inhabitants of Cheltenham and Leammgtpn, ar t d flis Scon boys—all pf these being places where the authorities are naturally especially jealous for the wholesomenes's of'all their circumstances—are all of them fed more or less on milk from cows feeding on sewage-grown grass,' "