46 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



Prof. Hilgard, of the University of Mississippi, states that all the products of our fields, 

 excepting a portion of the feed crops, ultimately go to serve as food or raiment to man. 

 Hence man s excrement, rags, paper and bone, must and do contain the ingredients withdrawn 

 from our soils; and were we faithfully to return all these things in the proper form and in 

 the right place, we should need no guano islands to eke out the deficiency in the return made 

 in the offal crops and manure of cattle. Prof. J. F. W. Johnston says of it: &quot;Night-soil is 

 the most valuable of all the solid animal manures. When dry, few other solid manures can 

 be compared with it, weight for weight. Dried night-soil is equal to thirty times its bulk of 

 horse manure.&quot; 



The cesspool and privy a.re necessary concomitants of every family, but it is the manner 

 in which they are regulated that renders them a source of pestilence and ill odors, or that 

 can transform these unseemly parts of the farm-house into comeliness and a source of profit, . 

 in converting, by the natural process, these noxious odors into elements of fertility for farm 

 use ; thus producing utility and beauty, which may be in the form of farm crops, garden veg 

 etables, fruits, or flowers, from what would otherwise be a source of noxious effluvia to poison 

 the air, and breed disease. How shall this be accomplished ? In the first place, we would 

 say, let such places be surrounded with some kind of shrubbery or vines, concealing the 

 deformities of art (which are in such cases usually conspicuous) with the beauties of nature. 

 As a disinfectant, there is nothing better than dry earth; a little used each day to cover the 

 contents of the vault and absorb the liquids will prevent all offensive odors, and keep the 

 contents in a condition to be easily handled when taken out to apply to the soil. It is nec 

 essary that the earth should be perfectly dry, in order to be an effectual absorbent. Earth- 

 closets have long been in use in England and France, and to a limited extent in this country, 

 and have been found to be completely deodorized, when used as above described. 



It has been found by experiment, that such soil, after being exposed to the sun and air, 

 and thoroughly dried, can be used repeatedly in the same manner, even six or seven times, 

 without being offensive, which proves the powerful deodorizing effect of earth. 



By adopting the earth-closet principle, any farmer can easily secure, free of expense, one 

 of the best fertilizers in quality that can be found. Road-dust, sifted coal-ashes, pulverized 

 charcoal and dry muck, or any kind of dry soil, may be used for this purpose. When either 

 is used in sufficient quantity each day, it can afterwards be as easily handled and removed as 

 any kind of soil ; it is also improved in quality by being mixed with earth or some foreign 

 substance. By this means also is it not only deodorized, but the evil effect of drainage into 

 wells can be obviated, thus preventing the contamination of the water, which is so often, in 

 the country, the fruitful cause of typhoid fevers, and other diseases. 



Sewage as a Fertilizer. The sewage question, both in a sanitary and agricultural point 

 of view, in other words, the question as to how the sewage of our cities can best be utilized 

 to fertilize the soil, and thus prove the double benefit of a sanitary and agricultural means, 

 has long engaged the attention of scientific men, and, although no definite solution of the 

 problem or practical plan has yet been adopted, we feel sure that the time is not far distant 

 when this question, which so materially affects the sanitary interests of the country, will be 

 satisfactorily settled in the interests of agriculture, as it has been in various European cities. 



Of course, the sanitary view of the subject is first in importance, and demands the high 

 est consideration, irrespective of agricultural benefits to accrue therefrom. It cannot be 

 otherwise in the nature of things, than that the water supplied by rivers and lakes to our 

 cities, is contaminated with poison, disease, and filth from the sewers that empty into them. 

 When we remember that the city supply furnishes the drinking-water to the inhabitants of 

 those cities, we do not wonder at the various diseases, and the extended death lists that swell 

 the records; we only wonder that they are so few. Gen. N. N. Halsted of Newark, N. J., 

 states as follows respecting this subject : 



