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Show WEALTH FROM SEWAGE. Of the total area of agricultural land ownd by the city of Berlin, more than half, or about 17.000 acres, have been prepared pre-pared for farming with the sewage which the mighty pumps of the city sea-age plants pump thither unremittingly in vast quantities. Preparation of the farms for sewage Irrigation ' Is a task of oonsld-" erable magnitude. In Its former state the land possessed hardly anything that could properly bo called soli. The fields were nothing more than slightly rolling tracts of sand or sandy loam of an average depth of between forty and sixty Inches. An American farmer would not give a second look to such land, a French-Canadian would pans It with a shrug, and even a sanrthiller of the South would scorn to syunt on It. Only by the most careful cultivation and the use of large quantities of artificial fertilizer were the original holders able to make It productive. produc-tive. Beneath the superficial layer of sand Is a substratum of impervious clay. A sandy or gravelly soli is In general the most favorable for sewage farming, hut In this case the depth of sand was hardly sufficient to prevent accumulations of foul fluids to such an extent as to render the land marshy and sour. This would have destroyed growing vegetation and threatened threat-ened the health of the whole neighborhood. neighbor-hood. Consequently It was deemed necessary nec-essary to provide at heavy expense a complete svstem of tinder drainage. ... The fields to which the sewage Is applied ap-plied are of two kinds, sloping and level. Comparatively little grading Is required for the former; the chief inequalities of the surface are smoothed down, tiles are provided, and an open ditch Is dug along the highest side of the field. This is filled to overflowing with sewage, which trickles down the Incline and is absorbed. Such sloping fields are used for the most part as meadows. Italian rye grass, the most successful of all sewerage plants. Is the principal product. On many of the better fields of the Berlin farms six or seven cuttings are taken annually, and the average yield an acre on the land used for this crop Is twenty-two tons of grass of excellent quality a year, a nar-velous nar-velous result considering the nature of the "soil. ... Fields which are level are graded until they are almost perfectly horizontal or are laid out In terraces. After having been smoothed off they are divided Into tracts of an acre or less, each of which Is still further subdivided Into narrow strips or beds. A complete system of Irrigation ditches, large and small, brings the Be w-aee w-aee into contact with the sides of all the beds. In no case Is It allowed to touch directly the growing vegetation of the level fields. The sea-age filters Into the beds from the sides and reaches the roots only. Considering the original character of the soil, a truly remarkaole array of vegetation Is brought forth luxuriantly on the level fields. Of grains there are wheat rye barley, oats, corn and rape seed- of vegetables, potatoes, beets, carrots, car-rots, radishes and particularly every variety va-riety of cabbage dear to the heart or the hausfrau; of fruits, strawberries, currants, cur-rants, gooseberries and raspberries. Medicinal Me-dicinal herbs, hemp and nursery seedlings seed-lings are other products. Roues whose exquisite scent strangely belles their nurture nur-ture are sold at-good prices to Berlin by the enterprising gardeners of the sewage sew-age farms. A large part of the work of cultivating must be done by hand. Most of the laborers la-borers live directly on the sewage farms, which have a permanent population of this character numbering about 3ono, of whom 2100 are adults. In addition to the free laborers employed on the Berlin farms, there are always from 700 to 1100 workhouse prisoners forced to work in the fields. Thus by a sardonic but truly poetic Justice, the sewage of a great city snd Its human riffraff ar. forced to work out their salvation together. Political Science Quarterly. |