70 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 
avoid the enormous annual outlay for imported mineral 
manures. As to the specific value of the manure, farming 
experience in England has already shown that the same 
portion of earth can he repeatedly used for absorbing and 
deodorising, and that when it has served for this applica- 
tion seven times in succession, it is still free from all unplea- 
sant smell, and equal to superphosphates in the turnip- 
fields ; its influence, however, being more durable and per- 
ceptible for three successive years. It may not be amiss to 
add that no manure is more useful in breaking up the tena- 
city of clay soils and reducing them to a rich and mellow 
loam. Late papers assure us that, besides the employment 
of Moule’s patent earth-closets by individuals, companies 
are being formed in several localities for introducing what 
may be termed the dry conservative mode into towns. All 
true cultivators of sanitary laws must hail this adaptation 
with unfeigned satisfaction ; for the earth-closet will not 
only free the inhabitants of towns from the evils insepara- 
ble from the best-executed system of water-closets, such as 
regurgitation, bursting of pipes, and the continuous exha- 
lation of poisonous gases to which the "Windsor epidemic 
of Typhoid fever was due, but present him with a system 
which can be carried out most inexpensively. The first cost 
is the supply of dried earth, and that I should think any 
agriculturist in the neighbourhood of our town would will- 
ingly supply, on condition of receiving it back when its 
absorbent and deodorising powers were exhausted. This 
system of dry conservation is no longer in its infancy, no 
longer confined to the brains or cabinets of theorists, but a 
matter realised in daily practice and admirably suited to 
tropical climates. The deodorisation of the closets is imme- 
diate and complete, as it was, no doubt, in the days of 
