CITY STREET SWEEPINGS AS A FERTILIZER. 



This bureau has many requests for information in regard to the 

 value of street dust and street sweepings as fertilizing material, 

 both from truckers and gardeners and from officials of large cities 

 interested in the best means of disposing of city waste. 



The debris which is collected from the streets of cities is com- 

 monly used as fertilizing material, being sold to near-by gardeners, 

 truckers, and farmers, its rather low cost making it particularly 

 attractive. The main object of the city official is to dispose of the 

 material, and in some cases it is burned and in others it is hauled 

 to a dumping ground and used as filling material. 



There is some variation in the character of the material collected 

 from the streets of different cities, depending on the nature of the 

 industries, the kind of paving material used, and the character of 

 traffic on their streets, yet on the whole the collections from sweep- 

 ings are very similar and consist chiefly of animal manure, leaves, 

 dirt, and trash, such as paper, fruit skins, particles of coal, etc. 

 The sweepings may contain also finer particles of the paving sub- 

 stance and some oily material dropped from vehicles. This is espe- 

 cially true at the present time, w r hen the use of power vehicles for 

 pleasure and business is so extensive. The effect of the sweepings 

 on crops, especially when used continually year after year on the 

 same field, is a subject of much Interest and has caused considerable 

 speculation. 



This article deals with an investigation of the street sweepings 

 of one of the larger cities. The material was studied from the 

 point of view of its organic and inorganic constitutents, and through 

 cultural tests, by means of which its effect on plant growth was 

 observed. 



CHEMICAL EXAMINATION FOR MINERAL SALTS. 



Three samples of the sweepings were examined. Sample No. 1 

 consisted of the debris secured by hand sweeping with a brush, 

 sample No. 2 was that secured by sweeping with a machine, and 

 sample No. 3 was the decomposed debris from a dump pile which 

 had been accumulating for some length of time. There was no 

 apparent physical difference between sample No. 1 and sample No. 

 2, both being composed mostly of the raw horse manure. Sample 

 No. 3 consisted principally of well-decomposed horse manure. 



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