how great is the dispersion of energy which such a process involves and how much heat is lost which might otherwise be used for the stimulation of germination and growth in seeds and plants. One hopes also that those who would condemn as foul the humus which contains a large amount of carbonic acid will remember that this gas may only be an evidence of perfectly healthy and vigorous action. The important fact that the tillers of the soil are the most long-lived of all the laboring classes is one which must never be lost sight of. That the humus breathes and generates an enormous quantity of carbonic acid precisely as an animal does is a fact which the agriculturist must ever bear in mind. Many of the operations of the farm have for their object the loosening of the soil and the admission of air to enable the respiratory processes to go on. Every farmer will tell you that the earlier he can get upon the ground to hoe his turnips the better will be the crop (other things being equal), and every farmer knows the advantage of thorough tillage. If the respiration of the humus is an important fact, it becomes very important indeed not to drown it. It stands drowning no better than a man does, but, like a man, it requires a requisite amount, but not too much, to drink. There can be no doubt that the failure, which is almost general, of so-called sewage farming arises through the drowning of the humus; and it must be borne in mind that sewage water consists to a very considerable extent of water which has been boiled, or is hard, deep well water, and has not the valuable quality of rain-water of containing some 2·5 volumes per cent. of atmospheric air dissolved in it. There can be little doubt that the great trouble to the sewage farmer is the excess of water which drowns the humus. When three or four ounces of excrement are mixed with 1,200 times their weight of water they run small chance of humification, and one must fear that the difficulties of the sewage farmer (financial or agricultural, or both) must increase with the magnificence and extravagance of the water-supply of the town the sanitary interests of which the sewage farm is intended to subserve. The evil effects of too much water have come before me lately in two very striking examples. While going over the experimental farm belonging to Mr. H. C. Stephens, M.P., at Cholderton, on Salisbury Plain, this autumn (which I did in company with a large number of practical agriculturists), there were here and there noticeable in the middle of fields having a uniform quality of soil, and which had been treated in identical fashions, certain large patches over which the growth of turnips, as compared with the rest of the fields was very defective. The explanation offered was that on these patches the animals had been folded in wet weather, that the dung had been trodden into the ground, and the soil had been hardened and consolidated by the trampling of the beasts.