The Sewage Disposal Problem on the Country Place 
THE SEPTIC TANK AND HOW IT ACCOMPLISHES THE COMPLETE AUTOMATIC DESTRUC¬ 
TION OF SEWAGE WITHOUT ANY ATTENTION WHATEVER AFTER THE INSTALLATION 
BY R I C H A R D M A XWELL W I N A N S. 
A NY argument to prove the need of proper sewage disposal is 
superfluous, or should be. Every suburban or country 
home not having connection with a common sewer ought to be 
provided with some arrangement to dispose of its sewage in a sani¬ 
tary manner; and every intelligent person should recognize the 
necessity, not only as a matter of simple sanitation, but in the 
vastly more important matter of health, which last in this con¬ 
nection depends largely upon the first. 
In this day of advance¬ 
ment and improvements 
there is no excuse for 
the old-fashioned privy 
vault, or even the com¬ 
mon type of earth closet, 
for even this last, which 
is admittedly an im¬ 
provement on the ordi¬ 
nary vault, is a germ¬ 
breeding trap to a great 
extent, and full of the 
possibilities of disease at 
the best. 
While the delights and 
many of the advantages of living in the suburbs and the open 
country are beyond a mere matter of comparison with city dwell¬ 
ing, yet statistics show that there is a greater percentage of sick¬ 
ness and a much higher death rate in the country than in the most 
congested cities. It has been shown, too, that the number of con¬ 
tagious diseases is greatly increased in the suburban and rural dis¬ 
tricts by a gross lack of sanitary arrangements about the homes, 
and that much of the general sickness is caused directly or semi- 
directly by such neglect. 
It is declared that if unsanitary conditions were tolerated in the 
city such as are too generally found about many of the suburban 
and country homes, the general health of the city dweller would 
be so far depleted and destroyed that a plague might quickly re¬ 
sult, while the death rate would increase to a most alarming degree. 
The methods of sanitation in the cities are scientific and prac¬ 
tical and their efficiency is enforced by the board of health. In 
many of the outlying suburbs and in the rural districts the meth¬ 
ods, or, too frequently, the lack of methods, are altogether gov¬ 
erned by the individual inclination, or his knowledge of methods, 
to secure more or less perfect sanitation. 
On an extensive and pretentious country estate in the East with 
which the writer is acquainted, having a splendid large mansion, 
fitted -with an artificial cooling plant, mechanical refrigeration, 
exhaust ventilation, the finest of plumbing and the most elaborate 
of everything in ultra-modern equipment and conveniences, with a 
five-hundred-barrel water supply tank kept constantly filled by an 
automatic cut-off-and-on electric motor, horse and cattle barns 
representing the last word in construction, with over-head carrier 
arrangements to dump all stable wastes directly into wagons for 
removal daily, and cement gutters automatically flushed to pre¬ 
vent stable odors in the dairy — and yet—the sewage from the 
kitchen sinks and the sanitary closets in the house empty from a 
line of tile at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, not 
more than fifty yards distant from the kitchen door. The sewage 
was supposed to be distributed in surface irrigation through an 
orchard and garden, although the sewage flume was generally 
clogged and overflowing at the house end. 
That was their method of sanitary sewage disposal, or, rather, 
the remarkable lack of it. 
In the West, on the other hand, the writer visited a modest little 
country home where a wind-wheel furnished a water supply to the 
house as well as stables, and not far from the house, covered with 
a sodded mound of earth, partially hidden by a group of shrubs 
and rose bushes, was a sunken septic sewage disposal tank similar 
to the one shown in the accompanying drawing, that converted the 
kitchen wastes and the 
sewage from the sanitary 
closets into a liquid 
stream of water carried 
through tile to a nearby 
brooklet. 
It is not an open ques¬ 
tion as to which home 
owner manifested the 
most intelligent judgment 
in his methods of sanita¬ 
tion. 
One of the first material 
essentials connected with 
the installation of the sys¬ 
tem of sewage disposal known as the septic tank, is a supply of 
running water, either from an elevated tank or forced through 
the house by the pressure system. 
Nearly all suburban homes are, or may be, provided with a run¬ 
ning water supply, as are the majority of modern country homes 
with which the writer is familiar. On many of the ordinary farms 
in out-of-the-way places there is an elevated water supply for the 
use of the live-stock and dairy, and in not a few instances it is 
provided for the house also—and in every instance could be. 
Should the elevated tank system of supply appear too unsightly 
for the suburban home, there is the more desirable pressure sys¬ 
tem, with the supply tank placed in the cellar of the house, or in 
a covered pit built for its accommodation. 
For pumping water up into the elevated tank or forcing it into 
the air-pressure tank there are several powers that may be economi¬ 
cally employed, the wind-wheel probably being the cheapest form, 
and one that requires the least attention, since automatic devices 
are now in use to stop the wheel pumping when the water in the 
tank reaches a designated point or the pressure-gauge indicates 
the necessary number of pounds in the air-pressure tank, and 
starts it again vice versa. 
Where electric current is available, as it is quite generally 
through most suburban sections, a light-capacity motor will do 
the work. A small gasoline engine is at once practical and eco¬ 
nomical, while in several known instances the automobile is hitched 
up for this work while it is resting. The principal expense in the 
installation of a private water works system is generally in the 
plumbing and fixtures rather than in the original cost of the supply 
equipment, which, once properly established, is good for an in¬ 
definite service. 
Having a water supply, the best method of sewage disposal for 
the suburban or country home is the septic tank. There are a 
number of differing styles of this tank, but in its simplest form the 
type is as shown by the diagram. The tank has for its purpose 
the accomplishment of one object, the conversion of sewage, both 
solids and liquids, into practically pure water through self destruc- 
(Continued on page 466) 
The whole septic tank as shown by the two sections is underground, with the 
exception of the filter bed; to this the air has access at the top. The size of 
the septic tank proper will be governed by the size of the household 
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