AGRICULTURE AUT) DENDROLOGY. 
9 
As the carbonate of ammonia which so copiously 
originates in the night-soil, is somewhat volatile even at 
low temperatures and escapes in considerable quantities, if 
the air is warm, the excreta will suffer a loss of nitrogen 1} 
n y while they are stored without dilution for a later 
ion, because then, after decomposition the concen¬ 
tration is very high. The volatilization of the ammoniacal 
compound will, moreover, be still more favoured by the free 
access of air, as the tubs are usually not covered by the 
farmers, but merely kept under a roof to protect the dung 
from the sun and rain. According to European researches 1 2) 
the loss of nitrogen from putrefying excreta may attain enor¬ 
mous proportions ; thus Fr. Erismann reports having found, 
that from a night-soil pit containing 24 cubic meters of dung, 
there escaped into the air 2.01 kilograms of ammonia in 24 
hours, and H. von Somaruga and Varrentrapp estimate the 
loss to amount to 1 / 3 — 1 / 2 of the total nitrogen, when the ex¬ 
creta are stored in the usual manner. As in this country 
the night soil is not kept for so long a time in the closets 
or fermenting tubs as in Europe, and as the arrangements 
for collecting and storing it are generally good, capacious 
glazed earthenware vessels, oil tanks, or saké tubs serving 
mostly as receivers, it is not very likely that the loss will 
he so great as in Europe, where very little care is bestowed 
on this manure. Nothing being, however, known of the 
degree to which this process takes place under the ordinary 
treatment of the excreta in Japan, we deemed it necessary 
to investigate the subject. 
1) According to investigations which I made in conjunction with Mr. 
T. Yoshii (Zeitschrift für physiologische Chemie 1887, vol. 12, p. 95) a li¬ 
beration of elementary nitrogen cannot take place in putrefying materials 
so dilute as are the human excreta. 
2) J. König, Stickstofifvorrath, 1887, p. 110. 
