290 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
to its nitrogen, to one hundred million tons of 
cattle dung. This is a statement that needs no 
comment. We commend it to the careful con¬ 
sideration of all who care for the problems of 
national prosperity. 
Inquiry has shown that a grown person pro¬ 
duces daily 2 lbs. of faeces, of which li lb. is 
fluid, and i lb. solid. 
In every 100 lbs. of urine there are 4 8 /« lbs. 
nitrogenous matter, in the proportion of 
100 : 46 3 /«; so that in 100 lbs. of urine we have 
about 2V« lbs. nitrogen. 
In 100 lbs. of solid faeces we have 4'/io lbs. 
nitrogen, so that in the yearly product of a 
grown person (547 lbs. fluid and 183 lbs. solid 
faeces) we have: 
In the fluid.12 1 /, lbs. nitrogen. 
“ solid. 7Va lbs. “ 
Or.19 5 /e lbs. nitrogen per annum. 
Or, in 100 lbs. of the mixed faeces we have 
2 3 / 4 lbs. nitrogen. 
So that, in respect to nitrogen, 100 lbs. 
mixed human faeces are equal to: 
417 3 / 4 lbs. horse dung. 753 ! / 3 lbs. cattle dung. 
445Vs lbs. pig dung. 298‘/ a lbs. sheep dung. 
As compared with the best guano, which 
contains 13 per cent of nitrogen, the yearly 
product of a grown person would equal l’/a cwt. 
of the latter, as regards nitrogen, or 100 lbs. of 
mixed faeces would equal 34 1 /, lbs. of best 
guano. 
In respect to alkalies, 100 lbs. human faeces 
equal 
109 lbs. horse dung. 111 lbs. cow dung, 
112 lbs. pig dung, 51 lbs. sheep dung. 
In respect to phosphates, 100 lbs. human 
faeces equal 
208 lbs. horse dung, 415 lbs. cow dung, 
208 lbs. pig dung, 124 lbs. sheep dung. 
In comparing human faeces with that of ani¬ 
mals, it would be well to take into considera¬ 
tion the fact that quantities of straw, etc., are 
mixed therewith. A comparison of human 
faeces with stable manure will show that 100 
lbs. of the former are equal in respect to nitro¬ 
gen to 
550 lbs. horse stable manure, 753 lbs. cow stable manure, 
660 lbs. pig “ “ 400 lbs. sheep “ “ 
In respect to alkalies, to 
135 lbs. horse stable manure, 140 lbs. cow stablo manure 
142 lbs. pig “ “ 75 lbs. sheep “ “ 
Or, in respect to phosphoric acid, to 
320 lbs. horse stable manure, 500 lbs. cow stable manure. 
330 lbs. pig “ “ 250 lbs. sheep “ “ 
As the best guano contains about 12 per cent 
alkali salts, and an equal quantity of phos¬ 
phoric acid, 100 lbs. mixed faeces will equal 8 
lbs. guano in respect to alkalies, and 5’/, lbs. 
in respect to phosphoric acid. 
Tim Bunker on Underselling the Butcher. 
“Twenty-five cents a pound for fresh lamb 
in Hookertown ! ” said Seth Twiggs, knocking 
the ashes from his second pipe, and loading 
again. With his forefinger fumbling over the 
bowl and acting as rammer, he continued: 
“ Who’d ever ’ave tho’t when he was a boy, that 
he should live to see sich times! Why, I can 
remember when my father used to sell the hind 
quarters of sheep and cajves for four cents a 
pound, and tho’t they were pretty well sold at 
that.” 
“ Mighty hard times to get a livin’, now,” ex¬ 
claimed George Washington Tucker. 
“ It’s allers ben hard times, sense I know’d 
any thing about ’em,” chimed in Jake Frink. 
“ What is the difference, whether lamb is five 
cents a pound or twenty-five, so long as a feller 
haint got any to sell, and is too blamed poor to 
buy any ! I take it. he is outside of lamb, 
altogether, high or low.” 
“It is a long time since I have been outside 
of any,” said Tucker slyly. 
“ You must eat veal,” suggested uncle Jotham 
Sparrowgrass, who came limping up the walk, 
cane in hand. “Veal is only twenty cents a 
pound, and half of that for the soup pieces. 
Soup is wholesome.” 
“ But what is folks gwine to do that haint got 
the dimes to buy soup pieces—which means 
bones, I take it? ” inquired Benjamin Franklin 
Jones. “ I’m put to’t every week to get enough 
to pay the butcher’s bill, lettin’ alone rent. And 
it’ll git to be pretty soon jest as bad here as it 
is in the old country, where poor folks can’t get 
meat more’n twice a week. It’s jest orful now.” 
“ The butchers make about all the money,” 
said Deacon Smith. “I sell a calf for seven 
dollars, which dresses a hundred pounds. He 
dresses it in less than half an hour, puts it in 
his shop, and retails it at an average of fifteen 
cents a pound, and gels a dollar for the pelt. 
He gets nine dollars clear for his time in ped¬ 
dling my calf, and at the same time he is selling 
lamb, beef, chickens, goslings, and other things, 
and making them pay quite as well.” 
“That’s so,” exclaimed Uncle Jotham; “I 
don’t know a butcher within twenty miles of 
Hookertown, that isn’t a prosperous man. There 
is Brown, over in Shadtown, begun business 
there twenty-five years ago, so poor that lie was 
hardly worth the clothes he stood in. He 
borrowed a little money, and begun to butcher 
and carry meat around on a wheelbarrow. He 
couldn’t afford a horse and wagon. Next year 
he bought one. Then he bought a piece of land 
and put up a slaughter-house. Then he bought 
more land, to put his slaughter-house manure 
upon, and raised the biggest crops in town. 
And it has been more meat sold and more land 
bought every year since, until Brown is as well 
off as any man in Shadtown. There was Jim 
Johnson, from the Whiteoaks, so poor that he 
used to grease the wheels for Kier Frink’s coal- 
cart at a cent a piece, and glad to get the job. 
He started business at the Ferry, just as the war 
broke out, buying lambs, calves, etc., of the 
farmers, and peddling them, until he opened a 
butcher’s shop in the village. Now Johnson is 
worth twenty thousand dollars, and is doing a 
business worth three thousand dollars a year. 
Any man with a decent character makes money 
as a butcher in our villages.” 
“ Wall, what ye gwine to du about it ? ” asked 
Jake Frink, philosophically. “ It stands tu 
reason that they’ll buy cheap jist as long as 
folks is fools enough to sell so, and they’ll sell 
dear jist as long as folks will buy of ’em.” 
“Undersell ’em,” I suggested. 
“That won’t du hardly,” said Seth Twiggs, 
puffing away at his pipe; “ ye see we’ve got two 
butchers in Hookertown, and I’ve noticed that 
meat is a plaguey sight dearer than when we 
only had one. Now ye see, if we bring in 
another butcher to undersell ’em, they’ll jist 
buy up this third man, and fix prices to suit 
themselves. Another family has got to be sup^ 
ported in Hookertown by selling meat, and 
those who eat meat have got to foot the bills. 
You don’t catch butchers doing business at 
their own expense.” There was a puff of smoke 
at this last sentence bv way of emphasis. 
“ Suppose farmers undersell the butchers,” I 
suggested. 
“That will do”’ said Deacon Smith. “As 
near as I can calculate, our butcher just about 
doubles his money on every calf and lamb lie 
buys. If he gives seven dollars for a calf, he 
gets, for his time in dressing and selling, seven 
more, and while he is doing this he is doing the 
same thing by the other meats in Ids stall. He 
might do tliis at much less profit and still do a 
thriving business. If his meat costs him ten, 
and he sells at twenty, I, who raise the meat, 
can sell at fifteen, and still do quite as good a 
business as I am doing on the farm. If I was 
a large farmer, raising calves and lambs by the 
hundred, instead of by the score, I might not 
be able to do this. It might be better for me 
to sell in the lump at a less price. But I only 
do a small business, like most Connecticut farm¬ 
ers, and I have time to speculate a little and at¬ 
tend to anything outside of my regular busi¬ 
ness that promises to pay well. It won’t inter¬ 
fere with my day’s work to dress a calf or 
lamb at evening, and send it round to my 
neighbors next morning. If I have two or 
more to dress, I have only to take them with 
me to Shadtown when I go to mill, and I dispose 
of them at the store without any loss of time. 
I have to go to mill every two or three weeks, 
and I almost always manage to take something 
to market at the same time—eggs, poultry, 
lamb, veal, or beef. At the end of the year I 
have sold fifty lambs or more, and a dozen 
calves, and all my poultry, and have had the ad¬ 
vantage of retail juices, which is, at least, twen¬ 
ty-five per cent better than the butchers would 
have given me. People get their meats cheaper, 
and nobody has any cause to grumble. It 
makes about four hundred dollars difference in 
the yearly receipts of my farm, and that comes 
to a good deal in the run of a lifetime.” 
“ Butcher Clark does grumble though," said 
Jake Frink, “ and says if it wern’t for Deacon 
Smith, Tim Bunker, and a few more old skin¬ 
flints, he could make some money.” 
You see the drift of things up here in Hook¬ 
ertown from this talk of my neighbors. The 
high price of meats is under discussion, and how 
to get them cheaper. Farmers sell cheap 
enough, and it does seem as if some way ought 
to be contrived to prevent the doubling of prices 
before the meat gets to the consumers. Some of 
us send dressed calves to New York and get re¬ 
turns at six and seven cents a pound, when such 
meats are quoted wholesale at eleven to twelve 
cents, and are sold to the consumer at an aver¬ 
age of twenty. I guess Deacon Smith has got 
hold of the root of the matter, and farmers must 
kill their own animals and peddle more. It 
will cultivate the spirit of trade a good deal 
more, and that is what is needed to wake up the 
farming population. Full one half of the suc¬ 
cess of farming depends upon selling well. 
Fam products are not well sold when the farm¬ 
er does not get three fourths of what they cost 
the consumer. I have noticed that these trad¬ 
ing farmers always get ahead and increase their 
lands and flocks wonderfully. There was Giles 
Bailey, on Sweet Briar Hill, as rough a region 
as can be found in New England, who followed 
meat peddling until he was eight}' years old. 
He appeared regularly in Hookertown on Tues¬ 
day morning, after a ride of a dozen miles, with 
his load of home-dressed lamb, veal, poultry, or 
whatever he had to sell, and -was generally 
known as Tuesday Bailey. He always kept 
first-rate meats, dressed them neatly, and under¬ 
sold the butchers, who never quite forgave him. 
He became one of the largest landholders and 
richest men in his town long before he died. 
Underselling the butchers did it. 
Eookertown, Ct., ) Yours to command, 
June 15, 1872. j Timothy Bujjkb3, Eeq. 
