192 BOARD' OF AGRICULTURE. 



did not contain any fertilizing material whatever. He said 

 you might use the dry earth over a dozen times in one of 

 those earth-closets, taking it out, drying it, and putting it 

 back ; and the chemical analysis made by him in his own 

 laboratory showed that it did not contain one single particle 

 of fertilizing matter. I told him I did not know but he was 

 right ; but, if he was, it seemed to me that I was a fool. I do 

 not believe it ; for if decomposition had taken place, and all 

 the nitrogen was lost by the decomposition, where were the 

 phosphoric acid and potash, in which this material is extreme- 

 ly rich ? Are they not there ? Dr. Goessmann knows about 

 this. I do not know that he has ever had an opportunity to 

 analj^ze any material taken from one of these earth-closets 

 after it had been used over and over again ; but I would like 

 to know, from his stand-j)oint as a scientific chemist, if such 

 a thing is possible. If this is so, let it run into the sea ; for 

 there is no fertilizing material in it. It seems to me incredi- 

 ble ; but yet some wonderful things take place in these mod- 

 ern days. 



Professor Goessmann. I believe that Professor Atwa- 

 ter's statement is rather too sweeping. The changes which 

 take place in nitrogenous matters are carefully studied by most 

 chemists engaged in agricultural chemistry. We know that 

 nitrogenous matters decompose in two directions. Under 

 the influence of either mineral constituents, or the free access 

 of air, it becomes nitric acid ; but under the exclusion of air, 

 or the limited exclusion of air and the exclusion of mineral 

 matter, it forms ammonia, and the ammonia itself, in the 

 course of time, will change into nitric acid. Nitric acid is a 

 substance which behaves quite differently from ammonia, so 

 far as its relation to the soil is concerned. Ammonia is 

 readily retained in the surface-portion of the soil, and the 

 absorptive qualities of the soil are strong in that direction ; 

 but nitric acid passes on: therefore a waste of nitrogen 

 might take place by passing into the lower portion of these 

 deposits. This may explain, to some extent, the small amount 

 of nitrogen in the surface portion of this mass. So far as the 

 mineral matters are concerned, they cannot disappear ; they 

 must remain : there is no question about that. The deteri- 

 oration of the night-soil is merely a transformation. You 

 want to understand the character of your fertilizers in order 



