218 HANDT-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



ing, subsoil plowing, cattle feeding, and rotation of crops, we are 

 fighting the fiend of exhaustion with much success. We are ran- 

 sacking the remote corners of our soil's pores for plant food which 

 is no longer yielded spontaneously, and, in many cases, we 

 seem to be regaining the original productiveness. But by-and- 

 by, perhaps a hundred years, and, perhaps, five hundred years 

 hence, we shall have exhausted even this hidden fertility of the 

 soil, for there is nothing more certain than that the material which 

 we take from the land and deposit in mid-ocean will never return 

 to the land by any natural process. And until we learn to care- 

 fully save and faithfully return to the soil the rejected elements 

 of our food, we shall continue to follow, whether apparently or 

 not, the road which Rome has traveled before us. 



It is in consideration of the foregoing facts that we are inclined 

 to attach great importance to the possibilities of the earth closet. 

 So long as the use of human excrement is degradingly offensive, 

 neither American farmers nor American citizens will willingly 

 subject themselves to the annoyance of doing any thing with it, 

 save to get it out of the way by the shortest practicable course. 

 If there are sewers to carry it into rivers, or into the ocean, that 

 is all that our highest civilization asks. If there are no sewers, 

 then kindly holes in the ground serve to remove it from sight. We 

 accustom ourselves to its odors, and give it no further thought 

 until necessity compels us to pay for its surreptitious removal by 

 night. Its money value is nothing ; the supply is precarious, and 

 the ofFensiveness of the removal more than offsets for its value as 

 manure. So long as this state of affairs continues, we cannot 

 expect much attention to be given to the subject. 



When the time arrives — and it will arrive — that farmers who 

 gladly pay eighty-five dollars a ton for Peruvian guano can pro- 

 cure an equally valuable fertilizer for seventy-five dollars per ton, 

 they will readily offer it, and their offers will stimulate organized 

 companies to turn into their own treasuries the present income of 

 the Peruvian government. 



The means by which this is to be accomplished are within 

 the reach of every community. The Rev. Henry Moule's earth 



