[Robert Forsyth], Foul Burn Agitation! Statement Explaining the Nature and History of the Agricultural Irrigation Near Edinburgh (1840)

Inflammatory harangues have been made at popular meetings against the irrigation of the lands below the City. The proceedings of those representative bodies, the Town-Council and Commissioners of Police, have been interrupted, that the members might listen to harangues hostile tithe improvement of the grass lands in the vicinity, as formerly, by irrigation. Robert Forsyth thus writes to refute the claim that sewage-irrigated agriculture harms health and should be stopped. A graduate of Glasgow university, he was licensed minister before being admitted to the bar, but for much of his early career had made his living as writer: of articles for the 1805 Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as a two-volume Principles of Agriculture and a five-volume Beauties of Scotland. Since the month of March 1839, great exertions have been made to excite in Edinburgh a popular agitation against the practice which has existed for ages, of employing in agricultural irrigation the streams of water that descend from Edinburgh to the sea.