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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    manure for the best application, and that the best herbage was obtained after the sewer water had deposited its fibrous matter and was transparent. The grass was better in quality after the sewer water had percolated through an extent of forty acres. The chief obstacle to the improvement of that irrigation was the want of water, and the want of means of dilution. The facts elicited by subsequent investigation, chiefly by reference to horticultural experience, appeared to me to establish the important conclusion, that an extent of dilution such as to extinguish offensive smells is the most favourable condition for absorption by the plant. This conclusion could, however, only be carried out practically by repeated applications of the manure; and to these the immediate obstacles were the expense of the labour of such repeated applications, as well as the outlay for the formation of water meadows and the expense of obtaining the water. In many places the expense of forming water meadows would be considerable. On some portions of the Duke of Portland’s meadows, I was informed that the expense was as high as 507. per acre to obtain perfect ■panes or tables. The quantity of water required to flood them was also very large. When these works near towns were completed, they would only serve for growing grass. It would be entirely inapplicable to arable cultivation. In the course of inquiries as to the means of street watering and cleansing, I ascertained that where pipes are laid down, and water maintained in them at high pressure (about 150 feet), and plugs are fixed at proper intervals, two men may water, by means of a flexible tube and jet, an extent of surface equal to twenty acres in a day. It suggested itself to me that this mechanism might be applied to the dis¬ tribution of manures in the liquid form. In the summer of 1842 I was staying with a friend, Mr Thomson of Clitheroe, where Dr Lyon Playfair was also staying. Mr Thomson has extensive print¬ works, where he employs about 1,000 persons, and from the works has much sewer manure. I then advised the application of this manure by means of the hose. So far as I am aware this was the first suggestion and experiment of the kind. The only modes of applying liquid manure then in use were by the method of irrigation, by the water-cart or by hand. The land adjacent to Mr Thom¬ son’s works was a stiff clay. I advised that it should be previously drained, and that Mr Smith of Deanston should be consulted as to the drainage, and on the mechanical appliances for applying the refuse. Mr Smith very soon entered into my views on this subject. The drainage was carried out as he recommended. Mr Henry Thomson, jun., who took great interest in the subject, carried out the first experiment of the application of the refuse by the hose, which appears to me to have been completely successful. In another place, in Lancashire, I advised a friend to apply the liquid refuse by means of the hose, and to engage Mr Smith to carry out the preparatory work of land-drainage. Mr Henry Thomson pumped up the sewage water from a well or shaft into a tank made at the top of a field,