A paper on the agricultural value of sewer and other drainage waters : submitted to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, / by Cuthbert W. Johnson.

  • Cuthbert Johnson
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A paper on the agricultural value of sewer and other drainage waters : submitted to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, / by Cuthbert W. Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/34 page 27
    grazier must discard from his mind any fear that the dilution of the urine destroys its power or its usefulness. It is proved by those who have tried it (a result entirely supported by my own experience), that the great danger is, by the appli¬ cation of such liquid matter by way of irrigation in too concentrated a state. When, however, it is necessary to apply it to grass land by means of a water-cart, then the more concentrated the fluid, the more is the expense of the cartage dimi¬ nished. In this mode of application, to attain the advantages of dilution, it is only necessary to select a rainy period for the operation. I feel assured, that if my agricultural readers would but consider the great produce of grass meads thus watered, and commenced their operations in convenient localities on only a small scale, they would speedily, from their success, find means for extending these highly useful plots of grass. In this way, many years since, near Glasgow, Mr William Harley commenced. He employed the urine of the cow, in that rainy locality, in its undiluted state. This he distributed over his land by means of a fire-engine or water-cart. The result is stated by him (Harlian Dairy System, p. 64) to have been excellent; that in fact the grass of the fields thus irrigated was cut five or six times a year, and though not very long in the blade, was abundant in its weight: it was so thick, indeed, that it would have rotted if it had not been cut often. The first cutting generally commenced about the middle of April, and was continued once a month. The best plan was found to be to cut the grass during the day when the weather was wet or moist; but when it was dry, then it was cut late at night or early in the morning, and the field irrigated immediately after being cut. Occa¬ sionally the land was irrigated during the night. At Glasgow, at the period to which I am alluding, there was a public washing-house adjoining the dairy; all the soapsuds produced in this house were drained into a tank, and applied in the same way as the urine, and sometimes the two liquids were mixed together; or if the weather was very dry, the urine was diluted with water. Both urine and soapsuds were applied to the watering of fruit trees, to strawberries (I can assure my hor¬ ticultural readers that if they will try the experiment with their strawberries, they will very soon be assured of the advantage of the plan), and in the destruction of worms. It is evident, too, from the experience of Mr W. Dickenson (Jour. It. A. S., vol. viii., p. 580), that it is not necessary to have a light, or even moderately loamy soil, with a porous substratum, for this operation. He says, when recounting his valuable experience of the effects of the urine of the horse as a liquid manure on a variety of the Italian rye-grass, “ My land is clay 250 feet deep ; in this soil only have I had experience, so for this only do I prescribe.” In referring to his experi- ence of “a new method of cultivating a peculiar plant, whereby nine or ten crops of excellent green food had been obtained between March and December, being cut in the former month, and watered with liquid manure, consisting of one-third of horse urine and two-thirds of water, distributed from a London street water-cart, passing once over the plant immediately after the grass was cut, one watering being sufficient for one crop,” he continues—“ Nos. 31 and 32 are London clays without drainage, with bad crops; upon this soil, moderately under-drained, my experi-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3