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.
Vegetation of some kind, useful or weeds, will grow from sewage, and must be frequently removed from land or contact bed.
This is a matter of vital importance, because when sewage is intermittently applied to land of any kind or to coke beds, vegetation of some kind or other must result and must be removed in order to leave a clear course for the next dose of sewage; the cost of removal and destruction of weeds will be found very great when contact beds are tried on any working scale and would be quite prohibitive if allowed to grow on irrigated land.
Hence we must crowd out the weeds as much as possible by useful plants which will bring something towards the cost of their removal; and as that return from perishable greenstuff is dependent upon its
immediate sale or consumption on the farm, the manager must cast about for demands for his abundant supply; but as both the sunshine (in this climate) and markets are very capricious factors in the problem, he has no easy task always to make both ends meet.
Theoretically the town which yields the sewage ought to provide an abundant demand, but in practice it can rarely be depended upon, Edinburgh being the only exception, where the Craigentinny sewage meadows are rented at a very high figure by the cow-keepers of a city situated in the heart of an arable district.
Alternative destinations for vegetation thus removed. Milk (everywhere in demand) or a destructor furnace.
Fortunately, however, there is always an unlimited demand for milk, and if he has the means of keeping a herd of cows on the farm, or can arrange with a neighbouring cow-keeper to take all the grass and roots he can supply at a low rate, it is about the best course a manager can adopt.
If he maintains a herd of cows, tied up in good, well ventilated stables, and has them daily brushed and groomed like horses, they require no exercise and produce milk in perfection for an average period of fifteen months from date of purchase after their third or fourth calving.