Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in the liquid form facilitates a rapid decomposition, and complete absorption of them. There are various examples to show that one load of solid manure, properly applied in dilution, will have four or five times the fertilising power that it would have in the solid form. Mr Barber, of Muirdrockwood, had 27 acres of land before his house, and the land was so poor that it originally only fed two cows, and that poorly; he kept 40 cows and 4 horses in his stable close to his house. He put the dung of the 40 cows into a tank, and passed a rill of water through the tank, and irrigated with the solution 22 acres. With the miscellaneous refuse of his house, the scullery, he irrigated 5 acres. The produce now, from the same 27 acres of land, ferti¬ lised by the liquid manure, enables him to feed 40 cows and the 4 horses. It was a very important experiment as to the result of the comparison between the effects of the liquid and the solid manure, on the same land. There were some knolls of land close by, which were elevated, and he could not irrigate; he had not the use of the hose, and whilst he has got four or five-fold crops by the applica¬ tion of the liquid manure, with all the top-dressings he has been able to use, he has never succeeded in getting more than one and a half fold of produce from the same sort of manure, the dung. I have had a number of other experiments made, all to the same effect; and one thing I find, that by the horticulturists, those who grow large produce and obtain prizes, invariably, so far as I have heard, do it by the application of the manure in the liquid form. I have obtained this further very important conclusion from such facts as I have collected, that an extent of dilution such as extinguishes smell, is about the best for absorption or assimilation by the plant; that all the progress is made by diluting more and more, and applying more and more frequently. A very able horticulturist, Mr Pince of Exeter tells me that he has arrived at this point, that he applies the liquid manure twice a week, and with one of plain water, as he expresses it, in the interval between each watering with the liquid manure. He gets rid of fibrous matter, and, to use his own expression, « I give this water with the manure in it so clear, that if you were not to know what it was, you would not object to drink it.” The two conclusions are in favour of frequent applications of manure in solution, and of getting rid, as much as possible, of fibrous matter. One practical reason for this course with horticulturists I find to be, the per¬ ception that not only does the fibrous matter tend to clog the pores of the soil, or in some way impede the least progress, but that every portion of fibrous matter is apt to become a niclus for animacula. It commonly escapes the farmer’s attention, that each mass of exposed dung becomes an officina gentium of devastating insects, which he unwittingly in that form spreads over his fields, frequently with the seeds of unknown and inconvenient weeds.