Although the method of broad irrigation has been carried on successfully in several of the largest cities of the old world, it has not been used to any great extent in the United States, except at a few state institutions in the east, and in the arid districts of the west.

Several years ago this method of disposal was given much attention as it was thought the sewage if used would yield large profits, but more recent information shows conclusively that such is not the case.

Perhaps the most noticeable examples of this system that are now in operation in the United States are the plants at the State Hospital of the Insane, Worcester, Mass., at the Rhode Island State Institute, and at the Reformatory at Concord, Mass. In all cases the labor was done by the inmates so that it is not possible to get a fair statement of the cost. General information regarding the use of sewage for irrigation in the west may be obtained from Baker and Rafters’ “Sewage Disposal in the United States”.

Undoubtedly the best example of sewage farming is at Berlin. The following summary is given by James H. Fuentes, M. Am. Soc. C. E., in No. 2. Vol. 40 of the Engineering Record. The average quantity of sewage pumped to the farms and distributed amounts to from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 gallons per acre per year, or in other words each acre serves for 750 people. The area farmed is divided into small beds about 150 by 200 feet separated from each other by slight embankments and ditches for distributing the sewage over the surface. The sewage is admitted into the carriers from the force mains through checking chambers made of woven willow and posts driven into the sand.

The farms are said to yield small profits over the expenses of working them, consequently contribute scarcely anything toward the cost of pumping the sewage.

The great reason why this method of disposal has been possible and profitable in a degree at Berlin is that this large and beautiful city lies in the midst of an extensive sandy area, the greater part of which in the immediate neighborhood is quite sterile and therefore comparatively thinly populated. Better conditions for such sewage farms could not exist.

Statistics compiled by Chas. S. Swan, M. Am. Soc. C. E. in his paper, Notes on European Practice in Sewage Disposal, in Jour. Assn. of Eng. Soc. Vol. 7 No. 7 shows the volume of sewage per acre per day (yearly average) to vary from 2155 to 29450 gallons, and the average depth per annum varies from 2.4 to 32.8 feet.

The nineteenth annual report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health 1888 states that on an ordinary farm in Massachusetts 2500 gallons per acre per day are as much as could be applied to any valuable grass crop. This would require such a large area for large cities that irrigation could not be depended upon for preventing the pollution of streams.

It is evident from the above report that the irrigation system can be used to advantage only where large tracts of low land can be obtained at a low cost, and where help and plenty of cheap labor can be obtained.