MANURES. 227 



be to a considerable extent dried. It should now be worked 

 over with a shovel or a rake until its parts are perfectly mixed, 

 and it may then be dried by natural or artificial means, as circum- 

 stances suggest, and prepared for another use. Until the decom- 

 position of the foreign matters has become complete, it is better 

 that the mass be kept in a compact body ; after that, the more 

 it can be spread the more rapidly will it dry, though it will in time 

 become dry in the barrel or bin. 



In the case of fixed closets holding a three months' supply, 

 it is hardly necessary to resort to any artificial means of drying, 

 nor even to any manipulation. The accumulation in the vault 

 or box must be leveled off with a rake from time to time, and 

 this will sufficiently mix the earth and fasces. 



In such cases it would be the best arrangement to have two 

 bins equal in size to the capacity of the reservoir and of the vault 

 of the closet; these may be in a shed connected with the privy. 

 One of the bins and the reservoir above the hopper being filled 

 with sifted dry earth, and the other bin with freshly-collected 

 earth, we go on and use out the supply in the reservoir. In 

 three months it has all passed into the vault, and is mixed with 

 fasces. We now fill the reservoir with contents of the first bin, 

 and put the contents of the vault in its place. When the reser- 

 voir is again empty, the earth that was freshly collected and moist 

 six months before, is dry and fit to be sifted into the reservoir, 

 the bin from which it is taken being filled from the vault. When 

 the reservoir has been again emptied, the first clearing of the 

 vault will have had six months to become dry, and may be sifted 

 and used. If the same earth is used six times over, the original 

 supply will last four years and a half, at the end of which time 

 it will be worth fullv fifty dollars per ton as manure. 



, THE QUANTITY OF EARTH. 



The quantity of earth that it is necessary to supply will depend 

 on the frequency with which the closet is used, and on the quan- 

 tity of earth that it is made to contain. The writer has, without 



