Feedwater

“ It is our judgment that the soil thrown into the canals undergoes important changes, perhaps through the absorption of soluble plant food substances such as lime, phosphoric acid and potash withdrawn from the water, or through some growth or fermentation, which, in the judgment of the farmer, makes the large labor involved in this procedure worth while. ”

“ We have seen that a sea of water, more than three feet deep over the whole face of the land, falls annually from the clouds, equal to 4,000 tons in weight to every acre. We would use enough of this water to dissolve the elements of fertility in the soil, and fit them for the food of plants. We would retain it all in our fields, long enough to take from it its stores of fertilizing substances, brought from reeking marshes and steaming cities on cloud-wings to our farms. ”

“ Grazing cattle or cows can also be carried on with advantage, the presence of sewage having no effect either on the milk or flesh of animals fed on sewage farms.
The third method, that of intermittent downward filtration, is really irrigation of land to such an extent as the land will filter or purify the sewage, the effluent passing off pure, irrespective of any effect upon the crops which may be growing upon the land. ”

“ The conservation of water upon the farm remains for our consideration; but, if we may be permitted to draw a conclusion at this stage, it is this:—Whether we deal with head-water reservoirs for the regulation of stream flow, with water-power development and the incident pools, with reclamation or irrigation projects, with the dredging and damming for navigation purposes, or with stream pollution by any means, we find a vital relation to fishery problems and to fish-cultural operations. ”

“ DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE.
The vital thing which thus presents itself is the disposal of fecal matter and other refuse so that the wells, upon which most rural families depend for their drinking water, may remain pure. To this matter we will first turn our attention.
Every person who tills the soil is acquainted with the remarkable transforming power of the superficial layers of the earth upon manure and excrement. Out of these offensive wastes harmless substances are produced which are essential to the growth of vegetation. ”

“ At the same time they are able to retain upon the field, uniformly distributed over it, the largest part of the rainfall practicable, and to compel a much larger proportion of the necessary run off to leave by underdrainage than would be possible otherwise, conveying the plant food developed in the surface soil to the roots of the crops, while they make possible a more complete absorption and retention by the soil of the soluble plant food materials not taken up. ”

“ When a town has more land in proportion to its sewage, permanent pasture may take the place of Italian rye-grass, and, with proper precautions, a part of the permanent pasture may be grazed; but the saving of labour, thus supposed to result from letting animals bite and carry their food, is expended in making up, in a necessarily imperfect manner, the carriers trodden in by the cattle. ”

“ But the surface water which comes over the surface of higher ground in the vicinity, should be allowed every opportunity, which is consistent with good husbandry, to work its slow course over our soil,—not to run in such streams as will cut away the surface, nor in such quantities as to make the ground inconveniently wet, but to spread itself in beneficent irrigation, and to deposit the fertilizing matters which it contains, then to descend through a well-drained subsoil, to a free outlet. ”

“ Sewage is the term used in England to designate water which, having been slightly impregnated with the feculence and ordure of a city or village, is diffused over a farm or farms adjacent, in order to impart at once fertility and moisture to its soil. To secure an equable and thorough dissemination of Sewage, it is essential that the land to which it is applied, if not originally level or nearly so, shall be brought into such condition that the impregnated water may be applied to its entire surface, and shall thence settle into, moisten, and fertilize, each cubic inch of the soil. ”

“ Spread over a large area of land, well cropped, evaporation is very active—especially during the summer months, when the flow of water in the brook that takes the effluent is as a rule at its lowest; and, in addition to this, the growing plants further abstract a considerable amount of the liquid that finds its way into the soil, so that the quantity of the effluent may not be more than from 30 [Pg 68] to 50 per cent. ”

“ The Crop.—From a sanitary viewpoint no crops which come in contact with the sewage should be cultivated on a sewage farm. Such products as lettuce, strawberries, asparagus, 464potatoes, radishes, etc., should not be grown. Grains, fruits, and nuts are grown successfully and as they do not come in contact with the sewage there is no sanitary objection to their cultivation in this manner. Italian rye grass and other forms of hay are grown with the best success as they will stand a large amount of water without injury. ”

“ The natives bathe and wash their utensils and clothes in the tank, because it is the only available place in which to do so, and they use the water of the tank, contaminated as it is in addition by soakage and sewage, for cooking and drinking, because it is the only water supply available for domestic purposes. ”

“ Since the water supply of the plain is not lavish, but little rice is grown there. The dry-land grains, and such vegetables as cabbages and potatoes, are the staple crops. The small gardens are sparingly irrigated, however, in times of drought, by water taken from the canals or wells with the help of various types of crude pumps, operated by men or by donkeys. ”

“ Until the last few years it has been a sad commentary on the intelligence of the average farmer that but few attempts have been made to supply the farmhouse with running water, adequate to the needs of domestic use. The men of the farm long ago realized that carrying water for stock in pails was both laborious and time-consuming, and very few barnyards have not had running water leading into a trough to supply the needs of cattle. ”

“ Constant care is required if a water-meadow is to yield quite satisfactory results. The earliness of the feed, its quantity and its quality will all depend in very great measure upon the proper management of the irrigation. The points which require constant attention are—the Management and advantages. perfect freedom of all carriers, feeders and drains from every kind of obstruction, however minute; the state and amount of water in the river or stream, whether it be sufficient to irrigate the whole area properly or only a part of it ”

“ Practical men have long been of opinion that the digestion of food, either animal or vegetable,—the passing of it through the bodies of animals,—enriches its fertilizing power, weight for weight, when added to the land. Hence, in causing animals to eat up as much of the vegetable productions of the farm as possible, it is supposed that not only is so much food saved, but that the value of the remainder in fertilizing the land is greatly increased. ”

“ There can be little doubt that the great trouble to the sewage farmer is the excess of water which drowns the humus. When three or four ounces of excrement are mixed with 1,200 times their weight of water they run small chance of humification, and one must fear that the difficulties of the sewage farmer (financial or agricultural, or both) must increase with the magnificence and extravagance of the water-supply of the town the sanitary interests of which the sewage farm is intended to subserve. ”

“ I have no doubt that, if wells were sunk and large reservoirs excavated to collect, during the rainy months, the quantity of water necessary for the irrigation of the soil during the ensuing dry season, many vegetables might be produced which it is now quite impossible to rear. ”

“ Sewage farms are not a commercial success. In such a farm liquid sewage is allowed to flow at intervals over the land, different fields being irrigated in rotation. Immense crops of grass are obtained, but the grass is coarse and rank.
The soil to be irrigated should have a gentle slope, and the effluent be conveyed by subsoil drains about 5 or 6 feet deep into the nearest water-course. The sewage should be delivered in as fresh condition as possible, and should be freed from its coarser portions by settlement or precipitation. ”

“ Water to the plant economy is just as important and necessary as it is to the animal economy. Consequently it is of primary importance to examine into the conditions which regulate the absorption of this important plant-food by the soil.
By the absorptive power of a soil is meant its capacity for drinking in any water with which its particles may come in contact. This power depends, first, on the predominance of its proximate constituents—viz., [Pg 68] sand, clay, carbonate of lime, and humus; and secondly on the fineness of the soil-particles. ”

“ Here, with any other waste litter, manure or ashes, they would be permitted to decay under water until the fiber had been destroyed, thus permitting it to be incorporated with soil and applied to the fields, rich in soluble plant food and in a condition which would not interfere with the capillary movement of soil moisture, the work going on outside the field where the changes could occur unimpeded and without interfering with the growth of crops on the ground. ”

“ That in time of flood a large proportion, both of the suspended and dissolved filth, is conveyed down to the intakes, and in ordinary weather considerable portion of soluble organic matter makes its way to the pumping works, and is still present in the water distributed to the consumers. ”

“ No statistics, however, are available to show that cows eating sewage-irrigated grass are adversely affected in health, and for years the practice of thus pasturing cows has been carried on in England. For human beings, however, vegetables grown in soil that is separated from the sewage by a foot or more is the safer as well as more æsthetic arrangement. ”

“ If, to take the other extreme, the soil particles are increased until they are as large as hen’s eggs, then, if the rate of application is not greater than 200 gallons per square yard of surface per day, 9and if the method and rate of application are suitable to this large amount, the resulting effluent is sufficiently freed from its objectionable matter so that the liquid can be turned into any body of water without danger of odors or other nuisance. ”

“ The watering system may be either a wooden gutter extending along the front of each row of stalls or a cast-iron semicircular pan set between each pair of stalls so as to supply a cow on either side. Whether troughs or pans are used there should be an automatic cock and tank, which keeps the water always at the desired level, and check valves which prevent the water once in the trough or basin returning to the pipe and contaminating others. ”

“ The figures for the rabi crop of 1908-09 were as follows, the figure for March being the final figure for the crop.
One great principle to be followed in order to obtain a high duty is to restrict the supply of water. A cultivator whose watercourse is always running full may waste great quantities of water, but if he knows that it is only to run for a few days out of a fortnight he will use the water carefully. ”

“ The canalization of fifty thousand square miles of our Gulf and Atlantic coastal plain, and the utilization on the fields of the silts and organic matter, together with the water, would mean turning to account a vast tonnage of plant food which is now wasting into the sea, and a correspondingly great increase of crop yield. ”

“ Tankage.—The waste from the slaughter of animals goes into a product called tankage. The refuse is cooked for removal of the fat, and then ground. It may run high in nitrogen on account of the amount of meat in the mixture, and it may be low in nitrogen and very high in phosphoric acid by reason of the large amount of bone in the mixture. Only a guarantee of analysis affords safety to the buyer. It is a relatively slow and good fertilizer, and is used usually in connection with forms of plant-food that are more quickly available. ”

“ King concludes, therefore, that one of the advantages of fallowing is to increase the moisture content of the soil. The Utah experiments show that the tendency of fallowing is always to increase the soil-moisture content. In dry-farming, water is the critical factor, and any practice that helps to conserve water should be adopted. For that reason, fallowing, which gathers soil-moisture, should be strongly advocated. ”

“ The vapors of the marshes, and of the exposed manure heaps of the thriftless farmer, are gently wafted to the well-drained fields of his neighbor, and there, amidst the roots of the well-tilled crops, deposit, at the same time, their moisture and fertilizing wealth. ”

“ And if land is to be acquired for sewage farming it will be very desirable to include in the purchase some neighbouring high lying area, not required for sewage disposal but for growing straw crops to be used on the farm. ”

“ By whatever means water is secured, the supply should be ample at all times. Springs and wells in the middle and northern states, and cisterns in the southern states will, in most cases, serve to supply the potable water needed, but these are too often inadequate to supply the large demand for water made by the animals, and the extra demand for water in the house made by cleaner and more sanitary methods of living. ”