NIGHT SOIL. 183 



remove it. Handling it, is indeed, not as pleasant as gathering 

 roses, but the roses may derive from it their exquisite coloring 

 and fragrance. It is one of those fragments that should be 

 gathered, if we desire that nothing be lost. We carefully save 

 the deposit of the stable, and shovelling amidst the filth of the 

 barnyard seems to us but play, as we are accustomed to it and 

 know that what has fed our cattle must go to feed our crops, or 

 farm and farmer will alike be impoverished ; but the richer 

 deposit of the vault is neglected, and the aggregate waste is 

 immense. No manure we have ever tried will compare in 

 cheapness and fertility with night soil. The value of animal 

 manure depends greatly on the quality of the food which the 

 animal consumes, and as man is the most richly fed, so his 

 excrements are of the richest nature. In the vault is found 

 fecal matter derived from flour, eggs, butter, beef and pork, 

 all well salted and peppered, and necessarily containing the 

 elements fitted to reproduce this highly concentrated food. 

 Theory and practice agree in placing poudrette at the head of 

 animal manures. Johnston says, dried night soil is equal to 

 thirty times its bulk of horse manure. This is the calculation 

 of the chemist. Our experience with it for many years may 

 not justify so high an estimate, but from no manure have we 

 derived so satisfactory results. Living near a populous village, 

 we have had an opportunity to obtain an abundance, and have 

 not been slow to improve the privilege. Our practice has been 

 to compost it with muck or the refuse charcoal of a neighboring 

 furnace. Coal ashes, sods from the roadside, or leaf mould from 

 the forest will answer a good purpose for the base of the com- 

 post. We have also tried pure sand in composting, and when 

 the manure is to be applied to clay-loam nothing is better. 



Night soil is adapted to all kinds of crops. We have never 

 known it to fail wherever applied. As it is the result of the 

 decomposition of many varieties of food, so it contains the 

 elements for the recomposition of many. As a nation we are 

 beef consumers, even to a greater extent than John Bull him- 

 self, and as all flesh is grass, or mainly derived from grass, we 

 might conclude the compost of night soil would be good for the 

 meadows, and so we have found it. For corn and roots it seems 

 equally efficient. It is so good for every crop, that we are at a 

 loss to decide where its application is best. As so many thou- 



