-------------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
| No. 1 Rough | No. 3 Rough |
| Contact Bed. | Contact Bed. |
-------------------------+---------+----------+--------+----------+
| Dates. | Gallons. | Dates. | Gallons. |
-------------------------+---------+----------+--------+----------+
Original water capacity }| 1897. | | 1898. | |
after putting }|October 1| 83,300 |Nov. 21 | 51,800 |
in the coke }| | | | |
| 1899. | | 1900. | |
After experiment | May 6 | 22,700 |March 10| 14,700 |
| | | | |
-------------------------+---------+----------+--------+----------+
Duration of each of } | | | | |
above experiments } |19 months| 60,600 | 25½ | 37,100 |
and loss in gallons } | | | mths. | |
| | | | |
Loss in percentage of } | | |
original capacity } | 73 per cent. | 71 per cent. |
-------------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
------------------------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+
| No. 5 Rough | No. 7 Single | No. 8 Single |
| Contact Bed. | Contact Bed. | Contact Bed. |
------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+
|Dates. |Gallons.| Dates.|Gallons.| Dates. |Gallons.|
------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+
Original water capacity}| 1899. | | 1899. | | 1899. | |
after putting }|Feb. 28| 53,100 | March | 75,000 |March 23| 29,500 |
in the coke }| | | 24 | | | |
| 1900. | | 1900. | | 1900. | |
After experiment |June 1 | 13,200 |October| 21,600 | June 1 | 9,800 |
| | | 20 | | | |
------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+
Duration of each of } | | | | | | |
above experiments } | 15 | 39,900 | 7 | 34,100 | 14 | 19,700 |
and loss in gallons } |months | | months| | months | |
| | | | | | |
Loss in percentage of } | | | |
original capacity } | 75 per cent. | 61 per cent. | 67 per cent. |
------------------------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+
_N.B._—The average duration of the above experiments was 14 months,
and average loss of capacity about 70 per cent. original water
capacity in that period.—A. S. J.
[Sidenote: Wrexham sewage farm.]
At Wrexham, in North Wales, I had nineteen years’ management of about
150 acres of good land, with a mixed residential and manufacturing
sewage of some 15,000 population, with large breweries and leather
works. The owner of this land at the termination of lease asked so
exorbitant a price for the improved freehold, that the corporation
decided to sacrifice the sewage works on his land, and to carry out a
scheme of mine for carrying the outfall sewer two miles further to a
site of 200 acres, which they could acquire on reasonable terms in the
year 1889.
During my management there was no trouble about the effluent, although
it was carefully watched by the authorities of the city of Chester,
which takes its water supply from the river Dee, some twelve miles
below my late farm; and the fact that the scheme which took the
Wrexham sewage two miles nearer to the Chester waterworks intake was
carried out _unopposed_ is, I think, strong evidence of well-founded
confidence in the efficiency of land treatment where the public have
the opportunity of observing such results. It is easy to get up a case
with expert evidence against any sewage scheme where the land-owners,
clergy and others have no means of properly informing themselves, and
have a prejudice against sewage which it is very difficult to overcome
except by giving the utmost possible publicity to the truth.
[Sidenote: The Camp Farm, Aldershot.]
Of late years, while working for the War Department, I have found it
expedient to be more reticent, but the Camp Farm restoration has in
one way or another become known to the public, and there can be no
great harm in my now referring to the circumstances as neither martial
law nor a censorship has yet been proclaimed in Hampshire.
When Aldershot Camp was first hutted, soon after the Crimean War, a
certain Colonel Ewart, R.E., had imbibed true ideas of the separate
system through his association with the work of the late Mr. Menzies,
the Deputy Ranger of Windsor Forest, who preached and practised that
system in the drainage of Windsor Castle and the town of Eton at a
time when every other civil engineer scouted the possibility of
keeping rain or subsoil water out of foul sewers—they said it was
essential for flushing their big sewers.
Colonel Ewart, at any rate, impressed his corps, and after about 1866
one began to see the word FOUL painted up over gratings into which the
soldiers were to pour their slops. A civilian, James Blackburn, also a
friend of Menzies, was employed by the War Office to deal with the
camp sewage on about 100 acres of rough heather-covered land close by,
and he, knowing his business, watched what came down the sewers in wet
weather and kept the Royal Engineers up to the Menzies standard.
[Sidenote: Mr. Blackburn’s successful management.]
Together with this initial advantage of having a regular volume of
sewage not much affected by storm water to deal with, Mr. Blackburn
had many drawbacks in the “pan,” as it is usually called, of iron
conglomerate underlying the very irregular surface which was pitted
all over with holes from which gravel or sand had been dug many years
ago; but he persevered until he had got nearly all the area to bear
good crops, when he entered the Camp Farm in competition for the Royal
Agricultural Society’s 100_l._ prize in 1879 for the best managed
sewage farm in the United Kingdom. The Report of the Judges at that
competition is recorded in the Society’s Proceedings 1880, giving full
statistics except financial accounts, which Mr. Blackburn withheld
because he was then in treaty with the War Office for new terms after
fourteen years’ work on the War Department Farm. My impression after
reading the judges’ reports and having seen the farm a year or two
previously to its date, is that, if the condition as to the production
of the financial accounts could have been fulfilled, the first prize
would have been awarded to the Camp Farm instead of jointly to those
of Bedford and to Wrexham.
Mr. Blackburn had built a big wooden shed and sublet it to a man who
bought his ryegrass for some fifty cows (for whose milk there was a
great demand in the camp), so this subtenant made a tempting offer to
the War Office and got a fourteen years’ lease of the whole farm,
while Blackburn retired in disgust.
I wish to write only from knowledge of facts, and will therefore take
up my narrative again in 1895, after an interval of some fifteen
years.
[Sidenote: Neglected state of, in 1895.]
In the month of May 1895, I was called upon to visit the Camp Farm and
report to Mr. Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Secretary of State for War
at that date.
I found the whole farm in a deplorable condition of neglected
nuisance, stagnant lakes of sewage retained here and there by banks of
earth, buildings and fences in decay, and the greater part of the camp
sewage passing, by pipes laid by its tenant, under a road which forms
the lower boundary of War Department land, to some rough meadows held
by their tenant from civilian owners for the purpose of saving him the
trouble of spreading the sewage over the sloping surface of the War
Department Farm—work which required the use of a land surveyor’s level
and staff.
In the ditches of these flat meadows the sewage could go through the
septic process to its fullest extent as the level of the river
Blackwater kept them nearly full at all times, and the supernatant
liquid could spread over the coarse herbage of these meadows only in
winter floods, with the result of heavy crops of hay, and sewage
disposal conveniently out of sight and outside War Office jurisdiction
when a Royal Engineer officer might come to inspect the Camp Farm from
time to time.
[Sidenote: _British Medical Journal’s_ report.]
But before my visit an active Medical Officer of Health (Dr. Seaton),
taking an interest in the state of the river bounding his county of
Surrey, detected the camp origin of the stagnant sewage, and,
concluding that the meadows must form part of the Camp Farm over the
road, made a serious report about “Government Sewage Marshes,” which
the _British Medical Journal_ took as a text for an article, and the
Thames Conservancy attacked the War Department as soon as their 1894
Act gave them jurisdiction in the matter.
[Sidenote: Temporary abatement of nuisance.]
I was told that the Camp Farm milk and grass had been condemned, and
that the tenant had consequently sold his cows and was to give up the
farm on June 20, 1895; therefore my report was wanted _forthwith_,
but it was only to take account of anything which could be done
_temporarily_ to abate nuisance, as an agreement was pending with the
Aldershot District Council for the removal of the camp sewage outfall
to some site, at least two miles distant from the camp, at which the
District Council was to become solely responsible for its future
disposal, together with their own Aldershot town sewage, and the War
Department to be rated for the purpose like any other householder.
I found the Commanding Royal Engineer then in office fully alive to
the existing nuisance and prepared to support any efforts I might make
to abate it. Accordingly I agreed to become manager in control of such
labour and material as was necessary for immediate temporary
improvement, and being supplied with army horses, and any necessary
buildings, tanks, etc. to be constructed by the Royal Engineers.
[Sidenote: 1897. The War Office resolve on permanent improvement.]
After about two years it became understood that the nuisance could be
permanently remedied on the Camp Farm, as I had said from the first,
and accordingly the draft agreement, which had then been in discussion
for five years, was abandoned. I was asked to prepare a scheme and
estimate for such permanent works as would enable the sewage to be
effectually disposed of on the Camp Farm.
Recollecting that the sewage had to be at once cut off from Dr.
Seaton’s “Sewage Marsh,” and its disposal provided for throughout on
War Department land, it will be observed that the improvement work had
to proceed piecemeal with some extra care and arrangement; but on the
whole I am satisfied that the work has been completed with greater
efficiency and economy than would have been the case if the sewage had
been turned into the river and the whole site handed over to a
contractor for two years in the usual course.
About the same date (end of 1897) about 13 acres of land was handed
over to my management with sewage from the Royal Military and Staff
Colleges at Sandhurst, about 8 miles distant from the Camp Farm, and,
being somewhat better land to begin with, this part now presents a
very pretty example of what a small installation for about 1000
population may accomplish.
But it is worked as part and parcel of the Camp Farm, horses being
sent out to Sandhurst from Monday to Saturday when required.
It is, perhaps, worthy of note that the reform of the Camp Farm was
initiated in 1895 by the Secretary of State for War in a Liberal
Ministry, and that it has weathered for seven years all the storms of
Jingoism and the fashionable crazes for artificial sewage treatment.
[Sidenote: Sir Redvers Buller’s period of command at Aldershot.]
But whatever may be the rights or wrongs of General Sir Redvers
Buller’s quarrel with the Press and the Government, his reputation as
a practical agriculturist is undeniable, and while in command at
Aldershot it was his custom to stroll over the Camp Farm on a Sunday
afternoon, occasionally leaving a message with cowman or bailiff to
warn me of anything he found amiss, for which I was very grateful,
living as I do ten miles away. I am proud, therefore, to be able to
publish the following letter from one who has shown that he is not to
be influenced by complaisance to superior or inferior in expressing or
modifying his opinions, and he writes as follows:—
17 LOWNDES SQUARE, S.W.
_July 14, 1902._