Sewage disposal : ten years' (now fourteen years) in works of intermittent downward filtration separately and in combination with surface irrigation with notes on the practice and results of sewage farming / by J. Bailey-Denton.

  • Denton, J. Bailey (John Bailey), 1814-1893.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sewage disposal : ten years' (now fourteen years) in works of intermittent downward filtration separately and in combination with surface irrigation with notes on the practice and results of sewage farming / by J. Bailey-Denton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    reverse, assuming that by engrafting seivage far7ning on ordinary agriculture it is meant that the liquid should continue to be distributed, as at Leamington and Doncaster,* in irregular quantities at times when it is not wanted. In neither of these cases has it been proved that a tenant farmer could afford to pay one farthing a ton for the sewage applied. ^All experiences tend to prove that the obligation to get rid of a large quantity of sewage under all circumstances and condi- tions, at night as well as day, on Sundays as well as week days, on cropped lands as well as fallows, and at all stages of growth, from seed- time to harvest, puts it beyond the reach of man to gain any real profit , from it. Fortunately for the ratepayers of urban districts the last lo years have conclusively shown, as I hope the instances given in this treatise will further confirm, that a comparatively small extent of land deeply drained and properly prepared, varying in extent, as already explained, ftom I acre to i,ooo to i acre to 250 people, according to the nature of the soil, will, if treated by Intermittent Filtration, under good management, suffice for sewage purification per se, and allow of the growth of heavy crops of grass, roots or vegetables at the same time. Fortunately, too, for agriculture, it has been made equally clear that it is quite practicable to prepare and use as a safety-valve, a proportion of any sized farm for Intermittent Filtration whilst delivering to the remainder of the farm only so much sewage as the occupier would deem desirable, so that in fact, if he requires a large quantity as a dressing for Rye Grass or other artificial grasses, or a comparatively small quantity for roots or cabbages, he can have just what he wants and no more. It can only be by some such ''safety-valve arrangement that the true value of sewage can be realised ; not that a sewage farmer may ever be able to pay x\d. per ton for what may be delivered to him, though, as already stated, it is certain that he will be better able to pay even that price for what he actually requires than a farthing per ton when the liquid is crowded upon him in such quantities and at such times as he cannot utilise it. In asserting this, the writer speaks from a lengthened experience, first as an ordinary farmer, and afterwards as a sewage farmer. * The experience at Cheltenham does not help to solve this question. There the sewage is cleansed by surface irrigation over land which is let by tender annually subject to the distribution of the sewage as the Sanitary Authority thinks well to apply It for Us own purpose. The return for the savage after the rent of the land is paid ,s reckoned to be ly. per head per annum of the population. G