Earth-Closets : Part 1

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 36 of 43)

In some particulars, the Chinese are in advance of our own nation in neatness, economy and healthy domestic arrangements. In China, nota particle of manure is wasted and all that with us is sent off in drains and sewers from water-closets and privies, is collected in a neat manner and used for manure. This is one reason that the compact and close packing of inhabitants in their cities is practicable and it also accounts for the enormous yields of some of their crops.

The earth-closet is an invention which relieves the most disagreeable item in domestic labor and prevents the disagreeable and unhealthy effluvium which is almost inevitable in all family residences, The general principle of construction is somewhat like that of a water-closet, except that in place of water is used dried earth. The resulting compost is without disagreeable odor and is the richest species of manure. The expense of its construction and use is no greater than that of the common water-closet; indeed, when the outlays for plumber's work, the almost inevitable troubles and disorders of water-pipes in a house and the constant stream of petty repairs consequent upon careless construction or use of water-works are considered, the earth-closet is in itself much cheaper, besides being an accumulator of valuable matter.

To give a clear idea of its principles, mode of fabrication and use, we can not do better than to take advantage of the permission given by Mr. George E. Waring, Jr., of Newport, R. I., author of an admirable pamphlet on the subject, published in 1868 by "The Tribune Association" of New-York. Mr. Waring was formerly Agricultural Engineer of the New-York Central Park and has given much attention to sanitary and agricultural engineering, having published several valuable works bearing in the same general direction. He is now consulting director of "The Earth-Closet Company," Hartford, Ct., which manufactures the apparatus and all things appertaining to it - any part which might be needed to complete a home-built structure. But with generous and no less judicious freedom, they are endeavoring to extend the knowledge of this wholesome and economical process of domestic sanitary engineering as widely as possible and so allow us to present the following instructions for those who may desire to construct their own apparatus.

In the brief introduction to his pamphlet, Mr. Waring says:

"It is sufficiently understood, by all who have given the least thought to the subject, that the waste of the most vital elements of the soil's fertility, through our present practice of treating human excrement as a thing that is to be hurried into the sea, or buried in underground vaults, or in some other way put out of sight and out of reach, is full of danger to our future prosperity.

"Our bodies have come out of our fertile fields; our prosperity is based on the production and the exchange of the earth's fruits; and all our industry has its foundation in arts and interests connected with, or dependent on, a successful agriculture.

"Liebig asserts that the greatness of the Roman empire was sapped by the Cloaca Maxima, through which the entire sewage of Rome was washed into the Tiber. The yearly decrease of productive power in the older grain regions of the West and the increasing demand for manures in the Atlantic States, sufficiently prove that our own country is no exception to the rule that has established its sway over Europe.

"The large class who will fail to feel the force of the agricultural reasons in favor of the reform which this pamphlet is written to uphold, will realize, more clearly than farmers will, the importance of protecting dwellings against the gravest annoyance, the most fertile source of disease and the most certain vehicle of contagion."

Nevertheless, Mr. Waring thinks that the agricultural argument is no mean or unimportant one and says:

"The importance of any plan by which the excrement of our bodies may be returned to our fields is in a measure shown in the following extract from an article that I furnished for the American Agricultural Annual for 1868.

"The average population of New York City - including its temporary visitors - is probably not less than 1,000,000. This population consumes food equivalent to at least 30,000,000 bushels of corn in a year. Excepting the small proportion that is stored up in the bodies of the growing young, which is fully offset by that contained in the bodies of the dead, the constituents of the food are returned to the air by the lungs and skin, or are voided as excrement. That which goes to the air was originally taken from the air by vegetation and will be so taken again: here is no waste. The excrement contains all that was furnished by the mineral elements of the soil oil which the food was produced. This all passes into the sewers and is washed into the sea. Its loss to the present generation is complete."

... "30,000,000 bushels of corn contain, among other minerals, nearly 7000 tons of phosphoric acid and this amount is annually lost in the wasted night-soil of New-York City.

"Practically the human excrement of the whole country is nearly all so disposed of as to be lost to the soil. The present population of the United States is not far from 35,000,000. On the basis of the above calculation, their annual food contains 200,000 tons of phosphoric acid, being the amount contained in about 900,000 tons of bones, which, at the price of the best flour of bone, (for manure,) would be worth over $50,000,000. It would be a moderate estimate to say that the other constituents of food are of at least equal value with the other constituents of the bone and to assume $50,000,000 as the money value of the wasted night-soil of the United States every year.

"In another view, the importance of this waste can not be estimated in money. Money values apply, rather, to the products of labor and to the exchange of these products. The waste of fertilizing matter reaches farther than the destruction or exchange of products: it lessens the ability to produce.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.