116 
Utilisation of Excrcmcntiliims Matter. 
should f-ver be 3000 men in the fortifications of Portlanil, and this 
system shoukl be adopted there, provision might be made for the 
^vhole garrison without any offensive smell or escape of noxious 
gas arising, whilst every day there might be manufactured three 
tons of valuable manure. What, then, would be the result if 
these means were applied to the camp at Aldershot and to the 
barracks of the United Kingdom ? Tlie cost of the two closets 
here used could not have been more than 50a\, besides a rough 
pug-mill ; the labour required was that of two men for twenty- 
minutes every other day ; the earth was dried by the atmosphere. 
The Vice-Chairman of the Board of Guardians at Bradford-on- 
Avon, writes to me that from the same earth having been dried 
and used repeatedly at the school of tlie union-house, in which 
there are o5 children, the whole compost did not exceed a cart- 
load and a half, or 30 cwt., at the end of five months. And with 
respect to health, comfort, and cleanliness, this gentleman tells 
me that where, previously to the use of earth, all had been 
" noxious pungency," there is now nothing whatever that is 
offensive. He adds that the earth was dried by the atmosphere 
'■^ under a few pantiles the labour required being that of an old 
pauper for about half an hour a day. 
III. The Value of the Blanure Produced. 
In the present stage of the working of this system, the diffi- 
culty of ascertaining the value of the manure thus manufactured 
is very great. The variations in the earth used, and the want 
of exactness in observing the relative weights and proportions of 
the soil," and of the absorbing earth, as well as in obtaining a 
thorough mixing of the two, combine to create this difficultv ; 
I therefore prefer to give a few instances of the practical appli- 
cation of it to the garden and the field, rather than to attempt to 
offi*r a scientific analvsis of its composition. In planting cabbages 
I have taken a handful or two of that which has passed through 
the closets five times, and, putting it into the watering-pot, have 
used it in a liquid form, filling the holes in which the plant is 
to be set ; and I have found that if this liquid manure be made 
too strong, it burns the root of the plant, even as guano would. 
A new gardener, not believing that there was much virtue in the 
heap of inoffensive earth he found lyinq: in the shed, thought if 
there was anything in it, his celery plants should have enough 
of it. He threw over them little more than a handful, and this 
burnt them up. With 6 lbs. weight I planted in a piece of 
unmanured ground 40 dozen brocoli and savoy plants. No 
plants could be finer than they were. A cottager at Bradford 
Abbas commenced the system in his large cottage garden in the 
