The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1869-05-08

Saturday Morning, May 8, 1869.
The Earth Closet.


The Earth Closet.
Years ago but very little was said about
manures; for the lands were new and con-
tanned in abundance the food that plants
need, but now our lands are more or less
exhausted by constant cropping and farmers
begin to feel the necessity of applying fertil-
izers to the soil. They are looking about
for manures Of various kinds. Barns are
now built with cellars for the purpose of
saving liquid as well as solid manures.
A few years ago man would have been
considered insane or lacking in common
sense who should dig cellar under his barn,
but now every intelligent farmer about to
erect barn will have a cellar under it. He
esteems it quite as profitable as the cellar
under his house. 1t has become matter OF
great interest to those who live in cities as
well as those who have their homes in the
country, to ascertain how to best dispose Of
the liquid and solid waste of the human body
SO as to prevent it from becoming an annoy
ance and source of disease and also to make
it means of fertility to the soil.
Prof. johnson of Yale scientific school
says that nothing is better established than
the connection between human excrement
and certain fearful epidemics. 1t is on all
hands admitted that cholera is most frequent
ly and certainly transmitted to healthy per
sons by the intestinal excavations of those
who have been sick with this fearful disease
Typhoid fever, too, form of disease always
more or less prevalent,is often traceable, with
scarcely less certainty, to privy vaults, cess
pools and sewers. 1t is stated that Prince
Albert of England probably contracted the
disease that caused his death from the foul
air that found its way into his study out of a
forgotten sewer through crack in the wall.
We were once riding in a stage in the Gran
ite State with an elderly lady from Vermont.
She was an honest, blunt woman, and withal
had touch of curiosity in her composition.
She asked where we had been. We told her
Boston. "Good Lord" she added II was
once there four days and didn't like it at
ALL" "Why nota" we enquired. "It stinks, .
was her emphatic reply which contained
more truth than good taste in the choice Of
language.
Prot, johnson thinks that most often it is
our drinking water that brings into us the
contamination. In multitudes of cases the
well is but a few yards or feet from cesspool
that receives the kitchen slops on one hand
and privy vault on the other. In his le-
searches on the cholera in Bavaria, in 1854
Pettenkofer traced its spread in several cases
to the use of water which had been in con
tact with the faces OF cholera patients.
The safest mode of escaping the evils In
question hitherto adopted in compact cities
consists in removing all human excreta to a
distance by subterranean sewerage. But in
our city we have been unable to do this fol
want of water; soon we hope to be supplied
with this necessary element, .and then we
shall wonder how we continued to live so
long without it. Even when Sebago pours its
waters upon us, we may not do with it all
that is necessary to the health of the city.
As Prof. Johnson says, we may not make the
connections, for sewers Will leak and rivers
and harbors are made noisome with the rot.
tenness that is poured into them.
We all know that vast amount of ma
nure is worse than wasted every year in our
cities and towns. Great bulks of beet corn
hay, and other food is brought from the
country to the cities every year, "whose use, ,
| says Prof. johnson, "to the people does moi
for the most part consist in any permanent
| giving of its elements, but which, after hav,
| ing weighted the wheel of life through half
| turn and dropped off waste, admits of con
version into food again, ii but carried back I,
the fields. True, immense quantities ar
never carried back to the soil from whenc
they were taken, but wasted and lost, perhap
forever. We do not stop to discuss the phi
losophy of exhalation and what that does il
fertilizing the earth. Prof. johnson contin
ues: "The animal who stands at the head o
creation requires the richest food and yield.
1 to the food-producer the richest return. Il
requires but little art to convert his excre
ment into increment, and the conversion may
be extremely profitable"
The means OF satisfying at once all de-
| mands of sanitary science and of agriculture
| is everywhere at hand and scheap as dirt.n-
Dry and fine earth is the material and the
Professor refers to Deuteronomy % chapter
IL and Ii verses to show that this property Of
earth is no new discovery and that its use
was loug ago prescribed to the Israelites-
The arrangements required to constitute an
earth closet are not necessarily complex Oh
expensive. The following plan will suffice:
1t is only needful that a space be had below
the privy-seat, the bottom of which should
be OF tagging or cement, and little above
the ground level, or at least protected from
the wet oArain and Of the ground This
| space should communicate with shed at the
rear of the privy, to hold on one side load
or two of dry fine earth (not sandy or sifted
coal ashes, and leave an equal room unoccu.
pied on the other. For hospital or sick-roon
use, either simple commode or pail, with
hod OF earth to apply.
1t isvery important that hotels, schools ani
colleges should be provided with this labol
and health-saving arrangement. The fertil
izing value of this compost would amply re
menerate and one for providing the EARTH
Its carriage is not attended with the leas
odor and requires not the cover of darkness.
| to mitigate its terrors.
Farmers, lose no time in providing your
| selves some kind of earth closets instead c
TIE horrible vaults which have hitherto suf
feed. The health of your families and YOU
exhausted soil both demand it. And Prof
johnson says: "City authorities would de
well to enact that all privies within hun
dred feet of dwellings or wells in use, should
be converted into earth closets, and to pro-
vide for their systematic and thorough con
struction." AGRICoLA.
Notes by the Way.
FLORENCE, Italy, April II, 1869.
To the Editor Of the Press:
The ceremonies of Holy Week having end
ed, the crowds of strangers who had thronged