232 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



" The value of night-soil must be affected both by the neces- 

 " sity for its removal, and by the offensiveness of the operation. 

 " The earth, after it has absorbed the excretions, is so perfectly 

 *' inoffensive, that I have known some that had been mechanically 

 " mixed, taken the same day to London in a box in his carpet- 

 " bag, by a chemist ; and by two engineers' clerks it was taken,. 

 " wrapped in brown paper, in their side-pockets," 



In an article in the London Times^ of October 8, 1868, in dis- 

 cussing the manner in which human excrement shall be disposed 

 of, it is stated that, " in the country all difficulty is avoided by the 

 " earth-closet system, which stood this year so severe a test at 

 " Wimbledon," (Wimbledon being the common on which the 

 annual muster of the English volunteers takes place, and where 

 the management of the latrines has hitherto involved very serious 

 difficulties.) 



It seems strange that the Mosaic law, which is to be found in 

 Deuteronomy, chapter xxiii., 12 and 13, should have fallen into 

 such long disuse. The requisition at that period referred, of 

 course, only to the sanitary requirement of man, and had no agri- 

 cultural foundation. It is as follows : — 



" Thou shah have a place also without the camp^ zuhlther thou 

 shalt go forth abroad : and thou shalt have a paddle upon thy zueapon ; 

 and it shall be^ when thou wilt ease thyself abroad^ thou shalt dig 

 therewith^ and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from 

 thee.'''' 



Professor S. W. Johnson, of Yale College, author of " How 

 Crops Grow," and the first authority in the country on all 

 questions relating to agricultural chemistry, as well as to the 

 practical use of manures, wrote the following article for the New 

 Haven Palladium : — 



" There are two grave questions which enforce attention from 

 " every dweller in the city, and should not be neglected by those 

 "who have the country for their home. These questions relate 

 " to the disposition of the liquid and solid waste of the human 

 " body. One of them is. How shall the waste be effectually pre- 

 " vented from being an annoyance and source of disease ? and 



