Value of Earth- Closet Manure. 
197 
earth-closet manure does not rest on any solid foundation, but 
upon the exaggerated view which many people entertain with 
respect to the money value of human excreta. Numerous 
examples might be quoted in proof of the fact that night-soil 
manures, prepared animal refuse matters of various kinds, sewage 
manures, and similar fertilizers are constantly offered for sale at 
prices which do not at all correspond with their intrinsic value, 
and, for a time, find purchasers if the price does not exceed 3/. 
a ton. Everybody who is acquainted witli tlie nature of farming 
operations and with the difficulty of estimating and tracing to 
their true source the effects of manure, must have noticed that, 
for a time, manmes like that produced by the ABC sewage 
process, find a sale at a price which is many times greater than 
the intrinsic value of their fertilizing constituents, and that even 
the poorest manures may find a temporary sale, particularly if 
the price is temptingly low. 
There can be no doubt that the solid and especially the 
liquid excreta of man are richer in fertilizing matters than the 
excrements of the horse, cow, pig, or sheep. The food of man, 
being a mixed vegetable and animal diet, is richer both in phos- 
phates and in nitrogen than the more bulky food upon which those 
animals are fed ; and as the greater portion of the phosphates and 
nitrogen, upon which the value of manure chiefly depends, passes 
through the body into the excrements, the fertilizing value of 
human excreta unquestionably is greater than the excrements of 
horses, cows, pigs, or sheep. Hence human excreta are highly 
esteemed as manuring agents in China, Japan, and Flanders, and 
all countries where the primitive mode of collection and trans- 
portation of these matters is considered no obstacle to their utiliza- 
tion. The manner of collecting and removing human excretal 
matters in these countries is, however, such as to be quite inad- 
missible with our modern notions of cleanliness, decency, 
comfort, and health. 
In considering the economic value of human excreta, we have 
to take into account not merely their intrinsic fertilizing proper- 
ties in an unmixed state, but also the condition in which they 
reach the farmer in a civilized country like England. Mixed 
with a large bulk of ashes or earth or diffused in a large body of 
water the same fertilizing matters, it is plain, cannot have so 
great a value as in an undiluted state. It has been stated that 
the excretal matters, as they leave the body, sell in Belgium for 
about 1/. per person per annum ; but this is not the case. Some 
years ago, in travelling through Belgium and Germany, I made 
special inquiries into the manner of collecting and utilizing 
human excreta in various Continental towns, and 1 took particular 
