340 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MAY 44 
Night-Soil for Vegetables 
IS IT SAFE TO USE? 
WHY SHOULD IT PRODUCE RANK, 
COARSE VEGETABLES? 
AN INTERESTING TOPIC. 
Many market gardeners report that their 
customers object to fruits and vegetables 
raised from night-soil or other rank manures. 
Among the many curious questions sent to 
us are the following: 
1. Would a plant manured with night- 
soil show an analysis different from that of 
another manured with a cleaner manure 
like a chemical fertilizer? 
2. Why should night soil, urine, or sim¬ 
ilar manures produce a coarser , less palat¬ 
able vegetable than the fertilizer? 
3. Are fruits and vegetables produced 
from manures containing disease germs or 
disgusting substances as healthy or as fit for 
food as those raised from chemicals? 
The frequency with which these questions 
are asked, has lead the R. N.-Y. to investigate 
the matter. The questions were sent to the 
parties whose answers will follow. 
FROM PROF. S. W. JOHNSON. 
1. Other things being equal no! 
2. Because they are injudiciously applied. 
If used in excessive quantity they produce 
rank, coarse growth. If applied as a top¬ 
dressing to spinach or lettuce, they make these 
nasty externally aud perhaps internally until 
rain-water and time destroy their ill-flavor. 
The vilest manures nave been constantly em¬ 
ployed in all countries, time out of mind, to 
produce the sweetest and cleanest of vege¬ 
tables; but after the manurings they must 
have time to grow and develop their own 
flavor. Even varnish doesn’t improve furni¬ 
ture until it gets dry! 
3. Disgusting flavors may perhaps enter 
plants and for a short time be perceptible in 
them; but they evidently cannot remain long 
without change and disappearance. Disease 
germs certainly enter plants; for example, 
those of the potato rot and onion and rye 
smut, and these render the plants unfit for 
food; but whether in any case the germs of 
animal diseases, some of which (cattle plague) 
persist for a long time in the soil, can enter 
plants and through them infect animals, is so 
far as I am aware, an unsettled question. 
FROM PROF. F. H. STORER. 
The notion that vegetables manured with 
night-soil may taste badly has often been de¬ 
bated in all the civilized lands. .Mo doubt 
there is, on this account, a certain amount of 
risA in using night-soil, unless care and good 
judgment are exercised to prevent the me¬ 
chanical contact of the manure with the vege¬ 
tables at inappropriate periods of growth. 
But there is a vast fund of experience to 
prove that no unpleasantness need attach to 
plants which have been skillfully grown with 
the help of human excrements. In so far as 
mere unpleasant flavor is concerned, that can 
doubtless be avoided by using the night-soil 
in not too large a quantity, and at early 
periods of growth. It need were, the trouble 
could be obviated by working the manure into 
the soil pretty thoroughly. But as regards 
the germs of disease—which is a far more im¬ 
portant question than the other—it must be 
said that the subject has not as yet been ade¬ 
quately studied. Nobody knows precisely 
how long the several kinds of disease germs 
might survive in moderately manured garden 
soils, though it is probable enough that most 
of them would soon perish there, either from 
lack of food, or want of comfort, or by being 
devoured by organisms natural to the soil. 
In any event, the risk to health from this 
source would probably be but small; for, even 
if it be admitted that some kinds of disease 
germs could continue to live for months in the 
garden soil, the chances of their becoming at¬ 
tached to the vegetables growing in this soil 
could hardly be very great, provided the 
night-soil were applied ,to the land properly; 
that is to say,if the times when it was applied 
were suitable and the methods of distributing 
it were good. It is to be remembered, withal, 
that most vegetables are^ cooked before they 
are eaten and that the process of cooking 
would destroy the “germs.” 
It is not at all probable that analysis could 
detect any difference^between plants manured 
with night-soil and others manured (as heavi¬ 
ly) with chemical fertilizers similar to those 
which night-soil contains; though, as a mat¬ 
ter of course, any plant which has been 
“forced” by means of large supplies of rich 
manure will “show its feeding.” It is notor¬ 
ious that night-soil and urine, when applied 
copiously, do cause plants to grow rank and 
coarse—like the smart-weed, at the edge of a 
barn yard pool—because they contain certain 
soluble nitrogenous substances which consti¬ 
tute a highly acceptable food for plants; and 
it is as true of plants as it is of animals that 
care must always be taken, in feeding them, 
not to allow free access to large stores of rich 
food, l oo much of a good thing is an evil to 
be avoided. In early times, the rankness of 
fresh barn-yard manure greatly troubled the 
wheat growers of Europe, and it is one of the 
merits of the artificial fertilizers that by ap¬ 
plying them in moderate doses to certain 
crops in a rotation the full benefit of farm¬ 
yard manure may be gained and the rank 
growth of grain be avoided. Hence, too, the 
frequent use of artificials in conjunction with 
not very heavy dressings of dung. Barring 
the question of disease germs, which appears 
to be a purely hypothetical one, experience 
and scientific observation alike teach that the 
supposed objections to night-soil may be 
wholly avoided by using this manure with 
circumspection and knowledge. 
FROM DB. PETER COLLIER. 
I am aware that objections are made to veg¬ 
etables grown on soil which has been fer¬ 
tilized with night-soil and other rank manures, 
I believe that, so far as this arises from any 
duced by coarse stable manure, and a bad 
burning quality by the use of fertilizers con¬ 
taining lime, magnesia, or chlorine. Tobacco 
fertilized with chloride of potassium takes up 
from the soil 40 times as much chlorine as 
when sulphate of potassium is used, so that it 
is an established fact that various manures 
may have an effect upon the constitution of 
plants, that would be readily shown by chem¬ 
ical analysis. 
Now as to night-soil: I don’t know of any 
exact chemical investigations which have 
been made for the purpose of testing the re 
suits of this manure upon the composition of 
plants; but I do know something practically 
of the apparent results upon many crops 
grown by its use from experience dating back 
40 years. 
My first knowledge was in regard to the 
growth of onions in the large market gardens 
adjacent to London and Paris when I lived in 
these cities as a student two score years ago. 
The drainage of these cities was very imper 
feet at that time, and hundreds of loads of 
night-soil were removed by the vegetable farm 
ers every night. This night removal gave to 
this waste product its common name of night- 
soil. It was a specific manure tor the onion 
crop which was grown year after year upon the 
same land, and fields of 40 acres or more were 
common a few miles out of the cities. Cer 
tainly the onions were of the most excellent 
quality—mild, sweet and succulent. The 
famous Italian onions are mostly grown in the 
same way, but with irrigation on account of 
the drier climate. Since then I have had per 
sonal experience among the melon growers of 
New Jersey near to New York City, all of 
whom make an annual gathering of the night- 
soil from the usual cesspools as the basis for a 
compost for his special crop. Every melon 
grower now knows of the Hackensack musk- 
melon. And this melon deserves all the praise 
it has gained for its tenderness, sweetness, 
succulence and peculiar, delicate aroma. 
There is no doubt that this manure is the 
SUNBEAM WALKING CULTIVATOR. See page 323. Fig. 112. 
thing but mere sentiment, it may be explain¬ 
ed by the rank growth generally secured un¬ 
der such conditions with perhaps less firm 
texture and deficient flavor, so that it is due 
rather to the lack of desirable qualities than 
to the presence of those undesirable. But 
there is abundant evidence to prove that, 
when properly used, nothing is better as a fer¬ 
tilizer. I do not believe that chemical analy¬ 
sis would indicate any difference between 
vegetables grown by the use of night-soil and 
those grown by the use of other fertilizers; but 
there might be a difference which chemical 
analysis could not detect, although I have no 
idea that such a difference would be found 
A “ disease germ ” is a very small thing, 
but so large, nevertheless, that a camel would 
as easily go through the eye of a needle as 
could a “disease germ” enter into the rootlets 
of a plant. 
“Disgusting substances” could, I have lit¬ 
tle doubt, find their way into a plaut by 
means of the roots, but if they should do so, 1 
have still less doubt that they would be ox¬ 
idized or otherwise destroyed within the plant, 
which, as we know, has the ability by some 
process concerning which little or nothing is 
known, to elaborate within itself in certain 
plants the most grateful odors, as the rose, and 
in others the most intolerable stenches, as the 
Stink-horn. 
FROM HENRY STEWART. 
No doubt the fertilizers used have a consid¬ 
erable effect upon the character of the plants 
grown. This effefit is well known in the case 
ot sugar beets, upon which potash has an in¬ 
jurious result, making the reduction of the 
sugar impossible from the so-called intrac¬ 
table potash salts contained in the juice. In 
the case of tobacco also, a bad flavor is pro¬ 
secret of its good quality. I have grown peas, 
cabbages, carrots, tomatoes and radishes with 
thi* manure for my own use and have long 
ago got over the sentimental repugnance to it 
as a fertilizer. This manure does not produce 
a coarse, rank, unpalatable vegetable. On 
the contrary, its product is tender, succulent 
and sweet, and radishes and lettuce grown 
with it are of the very best quality, as I have 
reason to know^from last year’s experience. 
The last question opens up an interesting 
chemical consideration. What is meant by 
disgusting? Disgust is a matter of sentiment. 
A farmers’s manure heap is disgusting to 
those persons who are not used to its odor. 
I have been more disgusted with the rank 
odor of (patchouli, used to excess as a per¬ 
fume by ladies in social gatherings, than I 
have ever been with the smell of a barn or 
barn-yard. A very popular perfume is made 
from cows’ dung and the manure of a well fed 
healthy cow is by no means disgusting as to 
its odor, until it decomposes. A rotten egg 
will easily disgust a refined person who will 
very readily drink, without any objection, a 
mineral water which has the very same- 
sulphuretted hydrogen gas escaping from it. 
“Disease” germs need special conditions 
for their growth. The poison of a rattlesnake 
is injurious if taken into a person’s stomach. 
“ Gamy ” venison, that is, the meat kept until 
decomposition has begun, which is disgusting 
to some and pleasing to others, is by no means 
unwholesome to tne. stomach; and if a person 
inserted some of the fluid of it into a wound it 
would almost certainly kill him. And so 
there is no danger at all from the use of put¬ 
rescent manures to the healthfulness of plants 
used for food that may be grown from them. 
China, with its enormous population, subsists 
mostly upon vegetables grown with night- 
soil. The most thickly populated'country in 
the world, Belgium, is mainly supported by 
the use of night-soil for the abundant crops 
grown there, and it is quite common to see 
the gardeners and farmers collecting from 
house to house the refuse of the families care¬ 
fully saved for sale, in suitable vessels, just as 
in some American villages the housewives 
save the ashes and bones for sale, and after 
dusk or at day-break an odoriferous traffic is 
carried on in this way in most of the Belgian 
towns and villages. With all these facts, 
there should certainly be no valid objection 
to the disposal of human wastes where they 
will do the most good, just as we dispose of 
the wastes of other, and less well-fed animals. 
NEW LEGISLATION NEEDED CON¬ 
CERNING MONOPOLIES. 
No. 6. 
PRES. W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Contract and Association.— Out of the 
right of life by labor grow as corollaries the 
rights of contract and association, only how¬ 
ever for proper and lawful ends. They give 
greatly increased power either for good or 
evil. When used for evil ends their right 
name is conspiracy. These rights need sharp 
limitation by law, since they lead quite natu¬ 
rally toward monopoly. Indeed out of each 
of them have already grown great abuses. 
For example, out of contracts for grain, pro¬ 
visions and stocks for actual delivery, have 
grown the frightful evils of stock and grain 
gambling on “futures,” greatly increased in 
possible volume by the system of “maVgins,” 
while the manipulating of “corners” is not 
only like using loaded dice or concealed cards 
against one’s fellow gamblers, but works 
great damage to the public at large. That 
“Old Hutch” of Chicago should in a month 
take over a million dollars out of the pockets 
or deposits of his fellow-gamblers might not 
perhaps alarm us so much did not transac¬ 
tions like his great September wheat “cor¬ 
ner” disturb commerce and injure tne whole 
country. Similar doings in 1879 sent the 
price of wheat for months above the Euro¬ 
pean export demand, made England seek 
and develop wheat elsewhere, and nearly 
ruined our export wheat demand for years. 
Similar gambling in stocks has wrecked 
many a railway financially. Such transac¬ 
tions injure the many to the vast enrichment 
of the unscrupulous few. 
Pools and Trusts. —Associations, too, 
called “ pools ” and “ trusts ” have in recent 
years and months been found to diminish the 
production and increase the price of all the 
mam essentials of life; the manufactured pro¬ 
ducts that give us food, clothing, homes, fur¬ 
niture, utensils, fuel and light. Their nature 
and methods are fairly well understood. They 
form a gigantic corporation “ that gobbles 
up” existing companies, controls the world’s 
supply or the country’s supply of some pro¬ 
duct or of the necessary machinery for manu¬ 
facture. Take a few illustrations. The Oat¬ 
meal Trust pays several mills in Iowa $20,000 
each, I am informed, to stop their mills or sell 
none of their product inside the United 
States. Some of us—no, all of us —pay those 
sums and enrich the trust besides. How ? 
Well, to-day the farmer gets from 16 to 18 
cents per bushel here for oats, one-half 
to nine-sixteenths of a cent per pound for 
oats, and pays five cents per pound for “ roll¬ 
ed oats” or “rolled aveua”or“oat meal.”- 
By the old laws water-power mills could only 
take one-tenth of the grist in toll. In 
the case of oats, under the “ trust, ” the mills 
take nine-tenths and the farmer gets back al¬ 
most exactly one-tenth of his grist I Is not 
this a burning outrage on its face 1 
The Copper Trust in France put copper at 
$400 per ton instead of $150 to $200. The 
stock of the trust was lately worth 900 cents 
on the dollar. It now seems likely to collapse. 
It bled the dear public too savagely. 
Take another case; a “trust" to control 
twine for binding is now (March 16) trying to 
raise the price of twine from 12 cents to about 
18 cents. The farmers’ organizations all over 
the West are agreeing not to buy the twine at 
an advance hbove last year’s prices. 
The recent investigation before the Senate 
committee gave alarming proof of the effects 
of “ trusts ” in stopping mines, mills aud 
manufactories, throwing men out of employ¬ 
ment, severely injuring localities and greatly 
advancing prices of commodities to the 
damage of society aud the .enrichment of the 
unscrupulous few. By this raising of prices 
above their normal level chese “ trusts ” tax 
the public “ without representation," destroy 
