Why, when the evening comes and the winds are quiet and still, When the sun is down in the west and his light is dying away,
Comes there a track of pale green light in the sky far over the hill, When all the heaven is dark and the clouds grow heavy and gray?
Yes, I have often watched for that space of pure heavenly sky, Clear as a placid lake, or a sea of crystal or glass
Over the western hills, an image of heaven on high, Stretching a thousand miles behind the clouds as they pass.
Strangely pale and faint, with a soft and luminous light, Yet fairer, oh! fairer far, than the golden light of the day,
Flushing and changing ever, and passing into the night, Still lingering over the hills, then fading and dying away.
Is it the type of a calm, of a strange and mysterious rest, Coming before the end ’ere the deep dark river be past,
Lighting declining years as the sun illumines the west, With a soft and a beautiful glow, which lingers the brightest and last?
Or is it a foretaste of heaven beyond these dim regions of care, A type of the measureless peace, and calm on Eternity’s shore,
Beyond the clouds of the world in a country surpassingly fair, Where that light shines steadfast for ever, and sorrow is heard of no more?
J. A.
THE RESTORATION OF OUR SOIL.
PART II.
After all, the most convincing experiments are those which we make ourselves; and it luckily happens that the means of applying our house sewage to the soil are at the disposal of any person having gardens or pastures surrounding his own house. One of the most conclusive experiments recorded in the evidence given before the Select Committee on the Sewage of Towns is that of Philip Skinner Miles, Esq., of King’s Weston. Every resident of Clifton and Bristol knows well the mansion of this gentleman,—an old gloomy house that once belonged to the Lords de Clifford, and built by the cumbrous genius of Vanbrugh. This seat is one of the show places of Gloucestershire, and the grounds command one of the finest views in the kingdom. Vanbrugh, however, lived in the days before house drainage was discovered, and the result was that the sewage of the mansion trickled down the side of the road which led to it. This disgusting nuisance was not only offensive to the sight, but in hot weather was very offensive to the nose, and the work of drainage became one of necessity. But Mr. Miles did not content himself with building an expensive drain, but, following the lead of Mr. Alderman Mechi, he determined to collect the sewage of his house, containing thirty persons, together with the rainfall, into a closed tank containing about 7000 gallons, which he ventilated by a pipe running up the chimney, which effectually took away all smell. The sewage was conducted by pipes to about twelve acres of grass and to two acres of ploughed land, and distributed by means of a gutta-percha hose. The result is that these fields have been improved in value from 55s. an acre to 5l. 10s., whilst the produce has been immensely increased. Two crops a year, so thick that they cannot stand up, and the crop is always good if the season be wet or dry. This sewaged grass, moreover, comes in full a month earlier than ordinary grass, thus giving that “early bite,” the advantage of which all farmers so well know; moreover, the herbage is full and thick to the end of November. The cattle are ravenous after the rich succulent herbage thus produced, and will eat it immediately the dressing has been applied; and Mr. Miles tells us that the dairy-maids cannot account for the great increase of the cream which has taken place since the experiment has been in operation. This seems very like a transformation scene one sees in a pantomime, rather than reality. The foul and filthy lane, at a fairy’s touch, becomes changed to a smiling meadow; the milkmaids are overpowered by the flow of cream, and the land is burthened with its crops; the stock gets rapidly fat, and the turnips grow so quickly as to get without the reach of the “fly.” The good fairy and the appliances, in this case, consists of an old man who can dress the whole of the fields in the course of the day; and the machinery is comprised in the tank, a small conducting pipe, and a hydrant with a flexible gutta-percha hose. Well might Lord Palmerston have remarked that “sewage was only matter in the wrong place.” What Mr. Miles has done any other person may do likewise; for the expenditure is but trifling, and the effect so great that it will pay all outlay in the course of two or three years. In this case it was proved that the excreta of each person was equal to the fertilisation of half an acre of land. For some little time yet, we look to the experiments of individuals as the best means of propagating the idea; for it will take a long time to convince the municipal bodies that their sewage, instead of being a nuisance to be got rid of, is a valuable commodity to be dispensed. But more valuable still, perhaps, will be the experiments of large institutions, such as county lunatic asylums, where the cultivation of land is one of the means used to exercise and interest the patients. We are glad to find that the visiting magistrates have already experimentalised in this direction, both at Colney Hatch, and also at Hayward’s Heath Asylum; but the most satisfactory results have, we think, been obtained by Mr. Westwood, late farm bailiff to the schools at Anerly (the inmates of which are about 700); and their value depends upon the fact that the experiments were made by a gentleman who acted under government inspection, and was obliged to render exact accounts of his expenditure, and that they have a direct bearing upon the very important question of the best quan-
