MANURES. 217 



countries of the world to sustain themselves without the aid of 

 importation, and its waste has brought destruction upon the most 

 prosperous empires. History affords no example of an exception 

 to the rule that the careful use of human excrement as manure 

 insures prosperity, and that its waste entails destruction. 



At a recent meeting of the Farmers' Club of the American 

 Institute, a paper on " Earth Closets " was presented by Mr. A. 

 Crandall, in which occurs the following paragraph : " Wasted 

 " excrement," says Liebig, " hastened the decay of Roman agricul- 

 ^' ture,and there ensued a condition the most calamitous and fright- 

 " ful. When the cloacae of the Seven-Hilled City had absorbed 

 " the well-being of the Roman peasant, Italy was put in, and then 

 " Sicily and Sardinia and Africa." Not one of these countries has 

 regained its lost greatness and prosperity. 



Longer ago than twice the age of Rome, China was a pros- 

 perous, industrious, and in many respects a cultivated country. 

 From that day to this, every particle of human excrement has 

 been almost religiously returned to the soil. Yet, to-day, with 

 about one-third of the world's population living exclusively upon 

 her productions, she has less abject poverty than has any other 

 country in the world except Japan, where the same practices pre- 

 vail. 



It is difficult to read history in the short chapter that our own 

 country presents, yet the washing of towns into rivers, and of 

 rivers into the sea, is even here telling an unmistakable tale. 

 That myth, " virgin land of inexhaustible fertility," is traveling 

 yearly westward. Once it was found in the Mohawk Valley, then 

 on the Genesee Flats, then the Western Reserve of Ohio and the 

 Miami and Sciota bottoms, then the wonderful prairies of Illinois, 

 then the States bordering the Mississippi River on the West ; and 

 now, from the very last of these, comes the cry, which has trav- 

 eled toward them by steady steps from the Mohawk valley, of the 

 disastrous effect of midge and rust and Hessian fly, and dry sea- 

 sons and wet seasons, and the endless list of calamities which we 

 rarely hear of save on lands of waning fertility. 



By a better system of agriculture, with the aid of underdrain- 



