UTILIZATION OF SEWAGE. 57 



cient to give it a head of a foot a mile. To cover an acre of 

 land one foot deep will take three hundred thousand gallons, 

 weighing, in round numbers, one thousand tons. This would 

 he equivalent to one irrigation of that acre. In that thousand 

 tons there would he ten pounds of phosphoric acid, the com- 

 mercial value of which is twelve cents a pound. Consequently, 

 we would have one dollar and twenty cents' worth of phos- 

 phoric acid in the tlowage or irrigation of one acre one foot in 

 depth. Then we would have sixty pounds of nitrogen, worth 

 twenty cents per pound, in soluble form. AVe might get, 

 perhaps, twelve dollars' worth of nitrogen, which, with the 

 l)hosphoric acid, would give a fertilizing value of not more 

 than thirteen dollars and twenty cents, and it is going to 

 cost twenty-four dollars to get it there. Then it must be 

 distributed at great cost. Better take your money and buy 

 your phosphoric acid and nitrogen in a more compact form 

 at less cost. That is the economical consideration of this 

 question. In Paris, where there is a large area of arable 

 land just across the river, it is a serviceable thing to do. 

 So at Edinburg, some of the sewage has been run upon the 

 adjoining meadows for two hundred years. When this 

 material can be gathered easily and spread upon the land it 

 is a very proper thing to do, but where this is not feasible, 

 it may be well to keep excrementitious matter out of the 

 sewers, although our modern habits will hardly concede that. 

 But somebody says: "Why don't you go around as they 

 do in Holland, or as they do in China, where this material is 

 sold by the inhabitants at so much a year, and gathered from 

 house to house ?" Are you ready to go back to that stage of 

 civilization, and keep your night soil for ten cents a year, 

 and gather it at that? You cannot roll back the progress of 

 civilization. You cannot introduce the customs of an Oriental 

 civilization and change the habits of an entire people. I 

 hope never to see the day when the poverty of our people 

 will be so great that men, and much less women, will bo 

 ol)liged to go from house to house to gather the contents of 

 privies in buckets. This is done in Holland and China 

 because it pays ; it is not done here because it would not pay. 

 The water-closet of modern times has come to stay. It adds 



