THE NIGHT-SOIL QUESTION. 191 



deport from them their choicest elements of fertility in the 

 form of food, and then send those elements down our sewers 

 into the sea. "We never can keep our farms up in tliC future, 

 unless we contrive some way to utilize this material. We 

 cannot utilize it, in my judgment, by the systems of sewerage 

 which have been adopted in all our large cities. The gentle- 

 man who spoke upon that topic has the bull squarely by the 

 horns. We mix two hundred, three hundred, or five hun- 

 dred parts of water with one part of this choice material ; 

 and we cannot afford to take all that water, and transport it 

 back to our farms. Therefore we have got to go straight 

 down to the very foundation-stone of this matter. If we 

 ever do utilize this material, as we shall in the future, we 

 have got to change radically our system of sewerage. This 

 material has got to be treated in our cities precisely as the 

 other garbage is treated. If you can control one thing, you 

 can the other. Night-soil is not the only nuisance in our 

 cities, because every thing else gathers there that breeds 

 pestilence, fevers, and plague. The city authorities contrive 

 to abate that nuisance. How do they do it ? They compel 

 every man to keep a barrel or other receptacle for this gar- 

 bage, and they send their teams around every day to cart it 

 away. It seems to me that what we want is to change the 

 system of sewerage ; turn the water used for washing where 

 it should go, into the sewer ; and then the night-soil should 

 be deodorized, either by chemical compounds or dry earth. 

 Then it becomes inoffensive, and it can be thrown into the 

 garbage barrels, and be carried into the country and utilized. 

 That is my view about it. Of course I know nothing 

 about it, — it is all theory ; but I see no other way by which 

 we can utilize this material in the cities. But in the coun- 

 try, among the farmers of the country, any man who allows 

 this material to go to waste to breed fever in his family or 

 his neighborhood ought to be indicted by the grand jury. 

 There is no reason under the sun why farmers should not 

 save all this material in such a way that it should be inoffen- 

 sive ; but in the cities some other means must be adopted. 

 Now, I must say another word, for the sake of calling out 

 Dr. Goessmann, or some other man w-ho knows his P's and 

 Q's about this matter. Professor Atwater of Middletown 

 told me that night-soil which had been saved in earth-closets 



