of cultivating without irrigation; but this is a mistake. Here is land
entirely free from stump, or stick, or stone, which may easily and
surely be plowed or seeded in March or April, and which will produce
great crops of nearly every grain, grass or vegetable, with a very
moderate outlay of labor to subdue and till it. The farmer need not
lose three days per annum by rains in the growing season, and need not
fear storm or shower when he seeks to harvest his grass or grain.
Nothing like ague or any malarious disease exhausts his vitality or
paralyzes his strength. I saw men breaking up for the first time tracts
which had received no water, using but a single span of horses as team;
whereas, breaking up in the Prairie States involves a much larger outlay
of power. The advantage of early sowing is very great; that of a long
planting season hardly less so. I believe a farmer in this colony may
keep his plow running through October, November, and a good portion of
December; start it again by the 1st of March, and commence seeding with
Wheat, Oats, and Barley, and keep seeding, including planting and
gardening, until the first of June, which is soon enough to plant
potatoes for Winter use. Thenceforth, he may keep the weeds out of his
Corn, Roots, and Vegetables, for six Weeks or two months; and, as every
day is a bright working-day, he can get on much faster than he could if
liable to frequent interruptions by rains. I estimate the cost of
bringing water to each farm at $5 per acre, and that of leading it about
in sub-ditches, so that it shall be available and applicable on every
acre of that farm, at somewhat less; but let us suppose that the first
cost of having water everywhere and always at command is $10 per acre,
and that it will cost thereafter $1 per acre to apply it, I maintain
that it is richly worth having, and that nearly every farm product can
be grown cheaper by its help than on lands where irrigation is presumed
unnecessary. There are not many acres laid down to grass in New-England,
whether for hay or pasture, that would not have justified an outlay of
$10 per acre to secure their thorough irrigation simply for this year
alone.
XLV.
SEWAGE.
The great empires of antiquity were doomed to certain decay and
dissolution by a radical vice inherent in their political and social
constitution. Power rapidly built up a great capital, whereto population
was attracted from every quarter; and that capital became a focus of
luxury and consumption. Grain, Meat, and Vegetables--the fat of the land
and the spoils of the sea--were constantly absorbed by it in enormous
quantities; while nothing, or, at best, very little, was returned
therefrom to the continually exhausted and impoverished soil. Thus, a
few ages, or at most a few centuries, sufficed to divest a vast
surrounding district, first, of its fertility, ultimately of its
capacity for production. And so Nineveh, Thebes, Babylon, successively
ceased to be capitals, and became ruins amid deserts. Rome impoverished
Italy south of the Apennines; then Sicily; and, at last, Egypt: her
sceptre finally departing, because her millions could no longer be fed
without dispersion.
That some means must be devised whereby to return to the soil those
elements which the removal of crop after crop inevitably exhausts, is a
truth which has but recently begun to be clearly understood. Unluckily,
the difficulty of such restoration is seriously augmented by the fact
that cities, and all considerable aggregations of human beings, tend
strongly in our day to locations by the sea-side, in valleys, and by the
margins of rivers. Anciently, cities and villages were often built on
hill-tops, or at considerable elevations, because foes could be excluded
or repelled from such locations more surely, and with smaller force,
than elsewhere. From such elevations, it need not have been difficult to
diffuse, by means of water, all that could be gladly spared which would
aid to fertilize the adjacent farms and gardens. A kindred distribution
of the exuviae of our modern cities is a far more difficult and costly
undertaking, and involves bold and skillful engineering.
Yet the problem, though difficult, must be solved, or our great cities
will be destroyed by their own physical impurities. The growth and
expansion of cities, throughout the present century, have been wholly
beyond precedent; and thus the difficulty of making a satisfactory
disposition of their offal has been fearfully augmented. The sewerage of
our streets and houses modifies the problem, but does not solve it.
Desolating epidemics, like the Plague, Yellow Fever, and the Cholera,
will often visit our great cities, and decimate their people, unless
means can be found to cleanse them wholly and incessantly of whatever
tends to pollute and render noisome their atmosphere.
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. This involves a very
considerable initial outlay; but the luxuriance of the crops unfailingly
produced, under the influence of this vivifying irrigation, abundantly
justifies and rewards that outlay.
As yet, the application of Sewage is in its infancy; since the perfect
and total conversion of all that a great city excretes into the most
available food for plants, requires not only immense mains and
reservoirs, with a costly network of distributing dykes or ditches, but
novel appliances in engineering, and a large investment of time as well
as money. Years must yet elapse before all the excretions of a great
city like London or New-York can thus be transmuted into the means of
fertilizing whole counties in their vicinity. But the work is already
well begun, and another generation will see it all but completed.
Meantime, many smaller cities, more eligibly located for the purpose,
are already enriching by their Sewage the rural districts adjacent,
which they had previously tended strongly to impoverish. Edinburgh, the
capital of Scotland, is among them. The little village of Romford,
England, is one of those which have recently been made to contribute by
Sewage to this beneficent end; and a visit of inspection paid to it, on
the 15th of October last, by the London Board of Works, elicited
accounts of the process and its results, in the London journals, which
afforded hints for and incitement to similar undertakings in this and
other countries--undertakings which may be postponed, but the only
question is one of time. _The Daily News_ of Oct. 17th, says:
"Breton's Farm consists of 121 acres of light and poor gravelly soil;
and it now receives the whole available sewage of the town of
Romford--that is, of about 7,000 persons. This is conveyed to the land
by an iron pipe of 18 inches in diameter, which is laid under ground,
and discharges its contents into an open tank. From this tank, the
sewage is pumped to a height of 20 feet, and is then distributed over
the land by iron or concrete troughs, or 'carriers,' fitted with sluices
and taps, so that the amount of sewage applied to any given portion of
the field can be regulated with the greatest facility and nicety. To
insure the regular and even flow of the sewage when discharged from the
carriers, it was necessary to lay out the land with mathematical
accuracy; and it has been leveled and formed by the theodolite into
rectilinear beds of uniform width of thirty feet, slightly inclining
from the centres, along which the sewage is applied. The carriers or
open troughs, by which the sewage is conveyed, run along the top of each
series of these beds or strikes; and at the bottom there is in every
case a good road, by means of which free access is provided for a horse
and cart, or for the steam plow--the use of which is in
contemplation--to every bed and crop. These arrangements--the carrying
out of which involved the removal of six hundred trees and a great
length of heavy fences, the filling up of a number of ditches and no
less than nine ponds, as well as the complete underdraining of the whole
farm--were mainly effected last year; but it was not until the middle of
April, 1870, that Mr. Hope received any of this sewage from the town of
Romford, and not until the following month that he obtained both the day
and night supply. Satisfactory, therefore, as have been the results of
the present season's operations, they have been obtained under
disadvantageous circumstances, and cannot be regarded as affording
complete evidence of the benefits which may be derived from the
application of sewage to even a poor and thin soil, which had already
ruined more than one of those who had attempted to cultivate it. To
mention only one drawback which arose from the lateness of the period at
which the sewage was first received, Mr. Hope had not the advantage of
being able to apply it to his seed-beds: and thus many, if not all his
plants were not ready for setting out so early as they would be in a
future year, and some of the crops have suffered in consequence--that is
to say, have suffered in a comparative sense. Speaking positively, they
have in all instances been much larger, not only than any that could
have been grown upon the same land without the use of sewage, but than
any which have been raised from much superior land in the immediate
neighborhood. The crops which have been or are being raised on different
parts of the firm, are of diverse character; but, with all, the method
of cultivation adopted has been attended with almost equal success.
Italian rye-grass, beans, peas, mangolds, carrots, broccoli, cabbages,
savoys, beet-root, Batavia yams, Jersey cabbages, and Indian corn, have
all grown with wonderful rapidity and yielded abundant harvests under
the stimulating and nourishing influence of the Romford sewage. The
visitors of Saturday last, as they tramped over the farm under the
guidance of its energetic proprietor, had an opportunity of witnessing
the abundance and excellence of many of these crops. Even where the
mangolds, from being planted late, had not attained any extraordinary
size, it was noticeable that the plants were especially vigorous, and
that there was not a vacant space in any of the rows. All the plants
which had been placed in the ground had thriven, and would give a good
return. Where this crop had been specially treated with a view to
forthcoming shows, the roots had attained an enormous size, and, like
some of the cabbages, had assumed almost gigantic proportions. The
carrots were very fine and well-grown, and the heads of the Walcheren
broccoli were as white, and firm, and crispy, as the finest
cauliflowers; while the savoys, of unusual size and weight, were as
round and hard as cannon balls; and some of the drumhead cabbages,
although equally distinguished for closeness and firmness, were large
enough in the heart to hold a good-sized child, and might, as was
suggested upon the ground, very well be introduced into some pantomimic
scene representing the kingdom of Brobdingnag. The Indian corn had
reached the respectable height of some eight feet, and, with few
exceptions, each stalk carried a good-sized and well-filled cob or ear.
These, unless we should have another spell of exceptionally hot weather,
will not ripen; but in their green state they are readily eaten by
horses and cattle, and prove excellent fodder.
In the course of their peregrinations, Mr. Hope's guests of course paid
a visit to the tank in which the sewage is received before it is pumped
on the land. We need hardly say that the appearance of this miniature
lake of nastiness was anything but agreeable; but its odor was by no
means overpowering, nor, indeed, very offensive. The rill of bright,
clear water which flowed in at one corner, and some of which was handed
about in tumblers, looking as pure as the limpid stream which flows from
the most effective filters that are to be seen in the windows of London
dealers, had only a short time before flowed out of this hideous
reservoir in a very different state. We had met it in the "carriers"
flowing along in a dark, inky stream, not smelling much, but covered
with an ugly gray froth which reminded one of some of the most
disagreeable details in the manufacture of sugar and rum, or suggested
the idea that it had been used for a very foul wash indeed. With these
reminiscences fresh in one's memory, it required some courage to comply
with the pressing invitations to taste this 'effluent water.' There
were, however, many of the party who braved the attempt; and, by all who
tasted it, the water was pronounced to be destitute of any except a
slightly mineral flavor. In dry weather, this effluent water, which has
passed through the land and been collected by the drains, after mixing
with the sewage, is again pumped over the fields; in wet weather, it can
be turned into the brook which is dignified with the name of the river
Rom. * * * We have omitted to mention that the rent paid by Mr. Hope is
L3 per acre, and the cost of the sewage (at 2s. per head) L6 more."
--I think few thoughtful readers will doubt that here is the germ of a
great movement in advance for the Agriculture of all old and densely
peopled communities, and that our youngest cities and manufacturing
villages may wisely consider it deeply, with a view to its ultimate if
not early imitation. That we are not prepared to incur the inevitable
expense of a thorough system of sewerage with reference to the
application to the soil of all the fertilizing elements that a city
would gladly spare, by no means proves that we should not consider and
plan with a view to the ultimate creation and utilization of Sewage.
XLVI.
MORE OF IRRIGATION.
I have thus far considered Irrigation with special reference to those
limited, yet very considerable districts, which are traversed or
bordered by living streams, and, having a level or slightly rolling
surface, present obvious facilities for and incitements to the
operation. Such are the valleys of the Platte, and of nearly or quite
all its affluents after they leave the Rocky Mountains; such is the
valley of the upper Arkansas; such the valleys of the Smoky Hill and the
Republican, so far down as Irrigation may be considered necessary.
Irrigation on all these seems to me inevitable, and certain to be
speedily, though capriciously, effected.
I believe a dam across either fork of the Platte, at any favorable
point above their junction, raising the surface of the stream six feet,
at a cost not exceeding $10,000, would suffice to irrigate completely
not less than fifty square miles of the valley below it, while serving
at the same time to furnish power for mills and factories to a very
considerable extent; for the need of Irrigation is not incessant, but
generally confined to two or three months per annum, and all of the
volume of the stream not needed for Irrigation could be utilized as
power. Thus the valleys of the few constant water-courses of the Plains
may come at an early day to employ and subsist a dense and energetic
population, engaged in the successful prosecution alike of agriculture
and manufactures, while belts, groves, and forests, of choice, luxuriant
timber, will diversify and embellish regions now bare of trees, and but
thinly covered with dead herbage from June until the following April.
But, when we rise above the bluffs, and look off across the blank, bleak
areas where no living water exists, the problem becomes more difficult,
and its solution will doubtless be much longer postponed. To a stranger,
these bleak uplands seem sterile; and, though such is not generally the
fact, the presumption will repel experiments which involve a large
initial outlay. The railroad companies, which now own large tracts of
these lands, will be obliged either to demonstrate their value, or to
incite individuals and colonists to do it by liberal concessions. As the
case stands to-day, most of these lands, which would have been dear at
five cents per acre before the roads were built, could not be sold at
any price to actual settlers, even with the railroad in plain sight,
because of the dearth of fuel and timber, and because also the means of
rendering them fruitful and their cultivation profitable are out of
reach of the ordinary pioneer. Hence, so long as the valleys of the
living streams proffer such obvious invitations to settlement and
tillage, by the aid of Irrigation, I judge that the higher and dryer
plains will mainly be left to the half-savage herdsmen who rear cattle
and sheep without feeding and sheltering them, by giving them the range
of a quarter-section to each bullock, and submitting to the loss of a
hundred head or so after each great and cold snow-storm, as an
unavoidable dispensation of Providence.
But in process of time even the wild herdsmen will be softened into or
replaced by regular farmers, plowing and seeding for vegetables and
small grains, sheltering their habitations with trees, and sending their
children to school. This change involves Irrigation; and the following
are among the ways in which it will be effected:
The Plains are nowhere absolutely flat (as I presume the "desert" of
Sahara is not), but diversified by slopes, and swells, and gentle ridges
or divides, affording abundant facilities for the distribution of water.
A well, sunk on the crest of one of these divides, will be filled with
living water at a depth ranging from 50 to 100 feet. A windmill of
modest dimensions placed over this well will be rarely stopped for want
of impelling power: Wind being, next to space, the thing most abundant
on the Plains. A reservoir or pond covering three or four acres may be
made adjacent to the well at a small cost of labor, by excavating
slightly and using the earth to form an embankment on the lower side.
The windmill, left alone, will fill the reservoir during the windy
Winter and Spring months with water soon warmed in the sun, and ready to
be drawn off as wanted throughout the thirsty season of vegetable growth
and maturity. Carefully saved, the product of one well will serve to
moisten and vivify a good many acres of grass or tillage.
Such is the retail plan applicable to the wants of solitary farmers; but
I hope to see it supplemented and invigorated by the extensive
introduction of Artesian wells, whereof two, by way of experiment, are
now in progress at Denver and Kit Carson respectively.
I need not here describe the Artesian well, farther than to say that it
is made by boring to a depth ranging from 700 to more than a 1000 feet,
tubing regularly from the top downward until a stream is reached which
will rise to and above the surface, flowing over the top of the tube in
a stream often as large as an average stove-pipe. Such a well, after
supplying a settlement or modest village with water, may be made to fill
a reservoir that will sufficiently irrigate a thousand cultivated acres.
Its water will usually be warmer than though obtained from near the
surface, and hence better adapted to Irrigation.
Of course, the Artesian well is costly, and will not soon be constructed
for uses purely agricultural; but the railroads traversing the Plains
and the Great Basin will sometimes be compelled to resort to one without
having use for a twentieth part of the water they thus entice from the
bowels of the earth; and that which they cannot use they will be glad to
sell for a moderate price, thus creating oases of verdure and bounteous
production. The palpable interest of railroads in dotting their long
lines of desolation with such cheering contrasts of field and meadow and
waving trees, render nowise doubtful their hearty cooperation with any
enterprising pioneer who shall bring the requisite capital, energy,
knowledge, and faith, to the prosecution of the work.
These are but hasty suggestions of methods which will doubtless be
multiplied, varied, and improved upon, in the light of future experience
and study. And when the very best and most effective methods of subduing
the Plains to the uses of civilized man shall have been discovered and
adopted, there will still remain vast areas as free commons for the
herdsmen and sporting-grounds for the hunter of the Elk and the
Antelope, after the Buffalo shall have utterly disappeared.
I do not doubt the assertion of the plainsmen that rain increases as
settlements are multiplied. Crossing the Plains in 1859, I noted
indications that timber had formerly abounded where none now grows; and
I presume that, as young trees are multiplied in the wake of
civilization, finally thickening into clumps of timber and beginning a
forest, more rain will fall, and the extension of woodlands become
comparatively easy. But, relatively to the country eastward of the
Missouri, the Plains will always be arid and thirsty, with a pure,
bracing atmosphere that will form a chief attraction to thousands
suffering from or threatened with pulmonary afflictions. A million of
square miles, whereon is found no single swamp or bog, and not one lake
that withstands the drouth of Summer, can never have a moist climate,
and never fail to realize the need of Irrigation.
The Plains will in time give lessons, which even the well-watered and
verdurous East may read with profit. Such level and thirsty clays as
largely border Lake Champlain, for example, traversed by streams from
mountain ranges on either hand, will not always be owned and cultivated
by men insensible to the profit of Irrigation. Nor will such rich
valleys as those of the Connecticut, the Kennebec, the Susquehanna, be
left to suffer year after year from drouth, while the water which should
refresh them runs idly and uselessly by. Agriculture repels innovation,
and loves the beaten track; but such lessons as New-England has received
in the great drouth of 1870 will not always be given and endured in
vain.
XLVII.
UNDEVELOPED SOURCES OF POWER.
The more I consider the present state of our Agriculture, the more
emphatic is my discontent with the farmer's present sources and command
of power. The subjugation and tillage of a farm, like the running of a
factory or furnace, involves a continual use of Power; but the
manufacturer obtains his from sources which supply it cheaply and in
great abundance, while the farmer has been content with an inferior
article, in limited supply, at a far heavier cost. Yet the stream which
turns the factory's wheels and sets all its machinery in motion
traverses or skirts many farms as well, and, if properly harnessed, is
just as ready to speed the plow as to impel the shuttles of a
woolen-mill, or revolve the cylinders of a calico-printery. Nature is
impartially kind to all her children; but some of them know how to
profit by her good-will far more than others. No doubt, we all have much
yet to learn, and our grandchildren will marvel at the proofs of
stupidity evinced in our highest achievements; but I am not mistaken in
asserting that, as yet, the farmers' control of Nature's free gifts of
power is very far inferior to that of nearly every other class of
producers.
I have been having much plowing done this Fall--in my orchards, for what
I presume to be the good of the trees; on my drained swamp, because it
is not yet fully subdued and sweetened, and I judge that the Winter's
freezing and thawing will aid to bring it into condition. And then my
swamp lies so low and absolutely flat that the thaws and rains of Spring
render plowing it in season for Oats, or any other crop that requires
early seeding, a matter of doubt and difficulty. All the land I now
cultivate, or seek to cultivate, has already been well plowed more than
once; no stump or stone impedes progress in the tracts I have plowed
this Fall; yet a good plow, drawn by two strong yoke of oxen, rarely
breaks up half an acre per day; and I estimate two acres per week about
what has been averaged, at a cost of $18 for the plowman and driver;
offsetting the oxen's labor against the work done by the men at the barn
and elsewhere apart from plowing. In other words: I am confident that my
plowing has cost me, from first to last, at least, $10 per acre, and
would have cost still more if it had been done as thoroughly as it
ought. I am quite aware that this is high--that sandy soils and dry
loams are plowed much cheaper; and that farmers who plow wall (with whom
I do not rank those who scratch the earth to a depth of four or five
inches) do it at a much lower rate. Still, I estimate the average cost
in this country of plowing land twelve inches deep at $5 per acre; and
I am confident that it does not cost one cent less.