Eugène Aubrey-Vitet

“ Germain would be as efficacious, if their action merely as an absorbing medium is contemplated, as 40,000 or 60,000 hectares would be in a scheme for irrigation. The demand for the water under the operations of irrigation would necessarily be very fluctuating. None would be wanted in the winter or in hot weather. While green crops might require much during the whole season of their growth, grain-crops must be carefully protected against it as the season of their ripening approaches. ”

“ By actual analysis this mud has been found to contain from eleven to fifteen grammes of nitrogenous substances, and from twenty to twenty-five grammes of phosphate of lime, per cubic metre. The whole deposit from a year's sewage of Paris would contain nitrogenous matters enough to suffice for the fertilization of 75,000 acres of land. It is certain that a sale would be gradually found for this valuable matter, the proceeds of which, estimated eventually to amount possibly to 1,500,000 francs a year, would in the end more than defray the entire cost of maintaining the system of extraction. ”

“ The mud which is spread on the permeable bottom does not soil the scoria, but leaves it perfectly clean, while the water flows clear from the end of the drains. After two or three days, according to the weather, the mud will appear cracked at some points, and finally over the whole surface. After a week it will have acquired consistency enough to be cut with a shovel. A cart is then brought into the basin, and after a few hours it is emptied and is ready to receive a new charge of mud. ”

“ And it is the same excess which makes it impossible to find sufficient surfaces on which it can all be employed in the cultivation of kitchen-garden vegetables, with whose demands its organic constituents well agree. Were this matter extracted in a dry state, it would furnish a precious element of fertilization to a large agricultural interest; and we might preserve it without difficulty and without loss, and transport it at will to apply it to crops of all kinds. ”

“ Far from securing the removal of the obstruction, it is not even sufficient to prevent a continued accumulation, and the muddy deposits are constantly extending farther down the river, and at the same time becoming thicker. ”