JAPANESE HUSBANDRY. ;5yi 



Germany, in some remote corner of the yard, with half-open 

 rear, giving free admission to wind and rain ; but be makes it 

 an essential part of the interior of bis dwelHng. As he ignores 

 altogether the notion of a ' seat,' the cabinet, which, as a general 

 rule, is very clean, neat, and, in many cases, nicely papered or 

 painted and varnished, has a simple hole of the shape of an 

 oblong square running across and opposite to the entrance door, 

 and serving to convey the excrements into the lower space. 

 Squatting over this hole, with his legs astride, the Japanese 

 satisfies the call of nature with the greatest cleanliness. I 

 never saw a dirty cabinet in Japan, even in the dwelling of the 

 very poorest peasant. It appears to me that there is something 

 very practical in this form of construction of a closet. We, in 

 Germany, construct privies over our dung-holes, and behind our 

 barns, for the use of our farm-servants and labourers, and pro- 

 vide them with seats with round holes. With even only one 

 aperture, it is too often found that after a few days' use they 

 look more like pigstyes than closets for the use of man, and this 

 simply because our labourers have a decided, perhaps natural, 

 predilection for squatting. The construction of the Japanese 

 privies shows how easy it would be to satisfy this predilection. 

 To receive the excrements, there is placed below the square 

 hole a bucket or tub, of a size corresponding to it, with pro- 

 jecting ears, through which a pole can be passed to carry the 

 vessel. In many instances a large earthen pot, with handles, is 

 used, for the manufacture of which the Japanese clay supplies 

 an excellent material. In some rare instances in the towns, I 

 found a layer of chopped straw or chaff at the bottom of the 

 vessel, and occasionally also interspersed among the excrements, 

 a proceeding which, if I mistake not, has of late been recom- 

 mended also in Germany. As soon as the vessel is full, it is 

 taken out and emptied into one of the larger dung-vessels. 

 These are placed either in the yard or in the field. They are 

 large casks or enormous stoneware jars, in capacity of from 

 8 to 12 cubic feet, let into the ground nearly to the brim. It 

 is in these vessels that the manure is prepared for the field. 

 The excrements are diluted with water, no other addition of 

 any kind briiifj made to them, and stirred until the entire mass 

 is worked into a most intimately intermixed fine pap. In rainy 



