476 
JULY 24 
NIGHT-SOIL. 
Fertilizing value of human excrement or 
night-soil ; its manurial constituents', the 
richest of all animal excrements ; why not 
used more extensively, difficulties in hand¬ 
ling; how it is commonly removed ; a “semi- 
civilized way” of doing it; “ thcbestway ;” 
all methods unpleasant ; its use in various 
countries; composting it before applying-, 
the earth-closet and how to manage it; 
crops most benefited by night-soil. 
Prof. Storer quotes the following table 
from Heiden with regard to the value of 
human excrements. These results are based 
on many analyses and refer to the average in¬ 
habitant of a city. The amounts given are 
the pounds produced during one year. 
Solids. Liquids. Total. 
Excrement. 107 9B4 1,071 
Dry Matter. 24 4 51.4 75.8 
Organic Matter. 21.8 40-2 02. 
Nitrogen. 17 9.7 1'.4 
Ashes. 3.9 11. 14.9 
Phosphoric Acid... 1.1 1.5 2.0 
Potash. 0.5 19 2.4 
Figuring the nitrogen, potash, and phos¬ 
phoric acid at the prices estimated in 
chemical fertilizers, it will be seen that the 
yearly excrement of a single person will aver¬ 
age about $2.25 in value when used directly. 
When used to form a compost with muck, 
sods, or other refuse its value will be consid¬ 
erably increased. Take a city like New York, 
with a million or more inhabitants, and the 
total value of the excrement for a year reaches 
an astounding figure. This wealth of manure 
cannot be utilized for the reason that with the 
modern system of sanitation so much water is 
used that to utilize 10 cents’ worth of manure 
a barrel of water must be transported or eva¬ 
porated. 
It is estimated that there are 130,000,000 of 
people in this country living outside of cities 
where a system of sewerage is used to remove 
the excrement. We have then over $60,000,000 
worth of available fertilizer from this source. 
Is it utilized? Let the resident of any town 
from 300 to 1,200 population answer. We 
should say that in not one town in 10 is any 
systematic effort made to utilize this material. 
We know of several thrifty farmers who have 
brought poor farms to a high state of culti¬ 
vation by a liberal use of night-soil collected 
in the neighboring village. In every case, 
however, they and their families have been 
almost completely ostracized from the village 
society. In most of the smaller towns, as fast 
as one vault is filled another is dug, the earth 
for the new one being thrown into the old. 
The mass of disgustingly offensive material 
remains in the soil, a constant and deathly 
menace to the health of the community. 
The English-speaking races have always 
regarded the handling or manipulation of 
night-soil with abhorrence. Most American 
laborers consider it little short of a disgrace 
to be called upon to clean out a privy or ap¬ 
ply the contents of the vault to the land. 
This is the chief reason why this fertilizer is 
not more generally utilized, and this objection 
could be almost entirely removed if proper 
steps were taken to render the handling of 
night-soil unobjectionable. The earth-closet 
offers the best means to this end. It is a fact, 
as we have repeatedly proved to our complete 
satisfaction, that a liberal supply of some dry 
absorbent will surely remove the objection¬ 
able features of moisture and odor and make 
the night soil easier and pleasanter to handle 
than horse manure. 
Mr. Stewart’s article will be of great inter¬ 
est to those farmers who have ever contem¬ 
plated the removal of night-soil from a near¬ 
by village. There can be no doubt as to 
the profit of such an enterprise if it be rightly 
conducted. 
UTILIZATION OF NIGHT SOIL. 
There has always existed a prejudice in 
the minds of the English and Americans 
against the emptying of the family vault, and 
the use of its contents for manurial purposes. 
This is chiefly due to two causes: first, the 
disagreeable odor, and, second, the belief that 
it will taint the growing crop. There is some 
justice in the first, but as to the second, Na¬ 
ture’s laboratory is too complete to cause any 
anxiety on that account. By the most of us, 
human excrement or night soil is considered 
a nuisance, to be abated as best it may; and 
as a nation advances in civilization this re¬ 
pugnance increases, so that at the present 
time but little use is made of this material. 
China and Japan furnish the best instances of 
its use. These countries have each sustained 
a dense population for over 4,000 years with¬ 
out any lessening of the fertility of their soil. 
As their farms are too small to warrant the 
use or keeping of animals, and the use of arti¬ 
ficial manures is almost unknown there, al¬ 
most the only means they have of enriching 
their land is the manure from the food they 
themselves consume. Their method of using 
it is to mix the solid portion of the excrement 
and apply it in the liquid form. France, 
Spain, and Belgium are the only European 
countries that have made extensive use of 
night-soil 
“But what are the special reasons why night- 
soil should be used ? ” is a question frequently 
asked, and which I would answer as follows : 
The soil contains a certain amount of plant- 
food. By constant cropping, this is gradually 
lessened, and if nothing were returned to the 
soil, it would soon become exhausted. It is 
the custom of most farmers to return to the 
land only that manure which comes from the 
coarse fodders; so there is a constant loss in 
the grains, fruits, milk, butter, etc. which 
are sold from the farm. The result is that 
where we formerly got 40 bushels of wheat 
per acre, in favorable seasons, we now get 20. 
For this decrease there is no excuse but our 
negligence. Restore to the soil as much as 
we take away, and our farms will retain 
their virgin fertility, and this can be done by 
utilizing our night-soil. In large cities the 
practice is to hurry this off into the sea. We 
may not appreciate this waste for a time, 
but sooner or later small returns will be our 
punishment. The question of health must 
take precedence of that of economy. As the 
accumulation of night-soil in cities would 
be a fruitful soui’ce of disease there seems 
as yet no help for this waste, but in the 
smaller towns where there are no sys¬ 
tems of sewerage, there are no reasons 
why it should not be utilized. But on ac¬ 
count of health, more care needs to be exer¬ 
cised. No method for the preservation of 
night soil is at once so cheap and efficient as 
the earth-closet. The principle of this is to 
make use of some absorbent, such as ashes, 
plaster, muck, or common garden soil, the last 
two being by far the best. Each time the 
vault is used a pint of this earth is thrown in, 
which will absorb and retain the gases, so that 
no bad odor is perceptible. When the vault is 
full, the contents may be removed, dried, and 
used in the same manner four or five times, 
each time becoming more and more saturated 
with valuable fertilizing matter. Thus hand¬ 
led, there are no disagreeable consequences. 
Farmers, and especially gardeners, can make 
for themselves a profitable business by haul¬ 
ing this to their farms or gardens and using it. 
Before applying to the soil it should be thor¬ 
oughly composted with muck, garden-soil, or 
other manures, for by so doing it will cover 
much more surface, and be much more effi¬ 
cient than when used m the concentrated 
form. The value of a manure depends upon 
the food of the animal. As man consumes the 
richest food it follows that night -soil is the 
richest of manures. It has been estimated 
that one ton of night-soil is equal to 13 tons of 
horse manure or six tons of cow dung. It is 
rich in ammonia, sulphates, - and phosphates, 
which three classes of substances are among 
the most necessary for plant growth and the 
most difficult to supply. Whether or not it 
will pay to spend as much time as it will be 
necessary to spend in hauling and composting, 
each can best determine for himself, as it de¬ 
pends much on circumstances, nearness to 
town, care used in the use of the absorbents 
and in composting. But where the work is 
carried on expeditiously and intelligently, I 
am certain there is no better or cheaper source 
of fertility than night-soil. a. e. hart. 
Ingham Co.. Mich. 
THE USE OF NIGHT-SOIL. 
HENRY STEWART. 
The difficulty in handling and using night- 
soil consists in a natural repugance which ex¬ 
ists in regard to it in its importable character 
and in the necessity of some method of pre¬ 
paration to make its application to the laud 
easy and effective. Although I have made 
this a subject of study for some years 
and have made use of this useful fertili¬ 
zer to some extent, I know of no systematic 
method of collecting it for use on farms. In 
European countries the greatest economy is 
exercised in gathering and making use of it, 
but so far as I know, the methods in vogue 30 
years ago,when I became acquainted with them 
on an extended visit, may still be practiced. 
Where a system of drainage prevails, this val¬ 
uable waste material is all washed into the 
rivers and lost, excepting in the few cases in 
which it is utilized for the fertilization of 
what are known as “sewage farms.” Where 
towns are not thus drained the night-soil ;so 
called from the long-continued habit of re¬ 
moving it in the night) is carried away in var¬ 
ious ways, some rough and ready and some 
quite effective. In some of the smaller towns 
of France and Germany the soil is collected 
in large casks mounted on wheels and the do¬ 
mestic receptacles in which it is gathered dur¬ 
ing the day are merely emptied into the casks 
which give out and leave behind them & co 
pious, most disagreeable effluvium which ling¬ 
ers about the streets long after the public are 
moving about in the morniDg. The soil is 
carried away to farms where it is mixed with 
loose earth, ccal ashes and other absorbent 
matters and used a - manure. 
This method was also used in Scotland, and 
I have seen it in use in parts of the capital 
city, Edinburg. The English method was 
and is different. The cess-pools in the towns 
and parts of the cities not yet supplied with 
drains, are provided with doors opening in the 
back alleys, and the soil is dipped up with 
long handled scoops and mixed with coal ashes 
or earth brought in the farmers’ carts or pro¬ 
cured at the ash heaps in the rear of the 
houses. Farmers living near the towns make 
a business of collecting the soil, and emptying 
the cess-pools and remove the contents for 
whatever remuneration they can get, or free 
of cost when they cannot get pay for the ser. 
vice. The soil is r« moved in the following man¬ 
ner. The earth or ashes are arranged on the 
ground in the shape of a dam around a suffi¬ 
cient basin and the soil is emptied into the re¬ 
ceptacle thus made and mixed with the ab¬ 
sorbent matter. This is loaded into deep carts 
or w’agons furnished with side boards, straw 
being used to hold it together much in the 
same way in which the ground apple-pulp is 
kept together in the cider-press. It is thus 
easily carried several miles into the country to 
the farms, where it is used for such crops as 
onions, cabbages and market vegetables, and 
is thus returned to the towns with interest. 
Onions, especially, grow luxuriantly when 
thus manured, and I have seen the land al¬ 
most completely covered with the enormous 
crops produced in this way. 
These ways of collecting the soil are by no 
means pleasant, nor in fact ai e any other ways 
that I have seen, and even the “odorless” sys¬ 
tem used in some of our American towns is 
not by any means free from disagreeable odor. 
But it is no w r orse than that of ordinary man¬ 
ure, and any farmer who can handle the con¬ 
tents of a rich manure heap in his yard need 
not scruple to use night-soil, and he will not 
as soon as he has got rid of the instinctive dis¬ 
like to it. 
The odorless method of gathering night-soil is 
more convenient. It consists of a large cask 
or tank and a pipe about six inches in diameter 
attached to a force pump. The semi-liquid 
contents of the cess-pool are thus drawn up in¬ 
to the receptacle and carried away where the 
stuff will do the most good. It is in excellent 
condition for making compost, by the addition 
to it of a sufficient quantity of dry swamp 
muck, earth, chaff, dry waste tan-bark, coal 
ashes, or any other absorbent waste matter 
which contains more or less fertilizing sub¬ 
stances. 
When, some years ago I had an opportunity 
of gathering the offal of a considerable coun¬ 
try town to which my farm was adjacent, I- 
made about 300 tons of the best kind of man¬ 
ure at a cost of not more than a dollar per ton, 
including all expenses and charges for use of 
teams. The streets were scraped and a large 
quantity of all sorts of waste matter—leaves, 
manure, guttej'-mud, garbage, etc—was 
gathered and mixed with the night-soil so that 
it was handled in an inoffensive and easy way. 
The odor was neutralized by means of gypsum 
(plaster) liberally scattered over the heaps as 
they were made, and the large quantity of 
earth from the streets also helped to the same 
end. I estimated the value of the crops raised 
by means of this compost as quite equal to 
$3,000 a year. The cess-pools were emptied 
by means of large buckets raised by a rope 
and pulley. The buckets were filled by a man 
using a long-handled scoop, and quite often the 
house over the cess-pool was moved over a new 
one, and the old one was then emptied and 
filled in with the clean earth, from the one 
newly dug. 
But this is a semi-civilized way only of deal¬ 
ing with this valuable waste. The best way 
is to make the dry earth-closet imperative. 
The agricultural press has made several most 
valuable reforms, and it can enforce this if it 
will make the attempt, if it will only keep on 
pegging away at it. It would pay an enter¬ 
prising farmer to supply these closets, 
simply made, and the dry earth required 
at weekly intervals, and to remove the 
contents of the boxes for the value of the 
manure. I have found that a family of thiee 
persons will accumulate about one ton of 
earth closet refuse in a year, and I estimate 
this to be worth $10 for use. I don’t care 
about the estimated value from analysis; I 
think a farmer who has paid $3 for a ton of 
city manure in which he gets a large percent¬ 
age of rubbish can make $10 out of a ton of 
the soil from an earth-closet, with less labor 
by far than by handling three tons of city 
stable manure. 
The crops for which this domestic fertilizer 
is most useful are those of a very succulent 
kind, such as cabbages, beets, musk-melons 
(this crop is especially improved by it), onions, 
potatoes and grass. It is the best of all for a 
lawn, because of its fineness and solubility as 
well as for its fertilizing effect. It is easily 
applied as a top-dressiDg, or harrowed in 
after the land is plowed. I have used 20 large 
wagon loads per acre on wheat, and I have 
taken off 37 bushels per acre. The best ef¬ 
fects yet were upon a 10-acre field of clover 
and Timothy, which gave 25 tons of hay the 
first cutting, and yielded for the second crop 
more than half as much more of the finest 
kind of clover hay and pasture after 
wards. Farmers who live near villages or 
towns, or in thickly populated localities, 
should by no means neglect this valuable addi¬ 
tion to their available supply of manure. 
BUCEPHALUS BROWN’S MOTIONS AND 
IDEAS. 
Blood will Tell. Mr. N. S. Howell 
says, on page 411, “ I have not known a good 
cow to be raised from a poor mother.” 
True;but a good father helps, too. Secretary 
Sessions, of the Massachusetts Board of Agri¬ 
culture, says, “ the bull is half of the herd;” 
and he goes on to prove the proposition by 
arithmetic and genealogy. Still again, as men 
had to begin all improvement at first from the 
bottom, having no other choice than to select 
the best among “scrub-stock to start with,’ 
we were obliged to begin with comparatively 
poor parents, on both sides. 
Blood is not All. No, nor half. Selec¬ 
tion and nutrition and good surroundings are 
the bigger part. How soon all we have 
gained will disappear without them! I know 
much unblooded stock, bred on good farms 
for a long generation, that is more profitable 
than any unselected thoroughbred herd is 
likely to be. 
No More Importations Required. Hav¬ 
ing got, as we suppose, the pick of Europe in 
our live-stock, good knowledge of the prin¬ 
ciples of breeding, and perseverance in apply¬ 
ing it, are far more important than further 
purchases abroad. Though the fine stock of 
any locality is partly (and indeed greatly) the 
product of wise breeding, it is fundamentally 
based upon environment; i, e. surroundings 
of all sorts. The undesigned and the uncon¬ 
trolled, as much as the purposed, have taken 
part in the formation of every breed of farm 
stock. The Teeswater cattle were the essen¬ 
tial basis and largely enter into the present 
constitution of the Short-horn. Devonshire 
cattle of old had in them much that is still 
prominent in the make-up of the Improved 
Devons. So with Norman horses, represented 
in the “ Perelieron;” Dutch cattle in the fal¬ 
sely and absurdly named “ Holstein : ” and 
so, all along the list, it is the same. 
Change Must Produce Change. It is 
vain to suppose that we can transport to and 
maintain on this continent any breed of farm 
animals long unchanged by their changed en¬ 
vironment. The Short-horn of the West will 
not continue closely to resemble the Short¬ 
horn of the East; neither will the Jerseys of 
the South maintain the same characteristics 
as those of the North. The Merino of Vermont 
and the Merino of Texas will draw continually 
apart and close resemblance can be preserved 
only by constant importations. 
These Facts are Fundamental. Yes: 
and any breeder who works without under¬ 
standing them, and their practical relation¬ 
ships, must and will fail of high success. 
Right in here comes, too, the question of a 
“scale of points,” upon which so much reliance 
is placed in judging the value of thorough¬ 
breds. If it is true that environment is, in the 
long run, the most influential element, then 
“breeds,” as we now understand the word, 
must break up and diverge under the vast 
differences of environment on this continent. 
If this takes place, a hard-and-fast scale of 
points, embracing many particulars, is impos¬ 
sible of maintenance. 
Practical Points Only. We shall all 
concede that for beef the butcher’s points, in 
all their essentials, must continue to be de¬ 
manded for beef cattle. The same is true for 
dairy points in dairy breeds, mutton points 
and wool points in mutton and wool sheep, 
and so all through. The more points you 
make, the more you multiply difficulty, soon 
reaching beyond the limit of possibility. As 
regards every breed as a whole, when widely 
distributed, all fancy points must be dropped, 
and business points alone adhered to. 
And What Then? It follows that if busi¬ 
ness points in cattle are alone regarded, then 
they will be applied not to breeds, but to 
classes. Thus, the beef points will be applied 
uniformly and impartially to Short-horns, 
Hereford?, black Polls and mixed stock; while 
dairy points will be applied, on the same prin¬ 
ciple, to all cows and sires alike, solely with 
