The dried and pulverized sludge from sewage-disposal plants is used as a fertilizer not only for lawns and flowers but vegetables as well. Therefore, would not the liquid and sludge from septic tanks, after it has passed from the first compartment and just before it passes into the third or final compartment, be a good fertilizer? How would it compare with the liquid manure used by farmers? Such sludge should be satisfactory as a fertilizer. It should compare favorably with liquid manure. The one danger is that liquid raw sludge can carry the organism of amoebic dysentery, as well as other diseases.
The local sewage disposal sells sewage settlings. Nothing has been added to this. How does this compare in value with barnyard manure and with other commercial fertilizers, for use on lawn and garden? (I have sandy soil.) Sewage sludge is actually an expensive fertilizer when fertilizer efficiency is considered. See health hazard mentioned above.
What is the value of sludge from sanitary district beds? At what rate should it be applied for flower or vegetable gardens? Recent reports from the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station indicate that the analysis of sewage sludge from 10 different cities varied as follows: nitrogen, 0.88 to 2.98%; phosphoric acid, 0.42 to 2.10%; potash, 0.05 to 1.6%. The report further showed that the nitrogen in sewage sludge was not more than 10 to 15% as effective as the nitrogen in nitrate of soda. In raw sludge practically all soluble nitrogen has been washed away with runoff water.