manure he now obtained had a very different effect from that of his first venture; and his philosophy was taught to comprehend the difference between the rich and varied feed of the habitués of the Palais Royal, and a soldier's rations, simply he lost money by his bargain.

The distinguished agricultural chemist Liebig, quoting Boussingault, speaking of the value of night-soil as compared with other manures, says, "On the assumption that the liquid and solid excrements of man amount, on an average, to only a pound and a half daily (a pound and a quarter of urine and one-quarter pound fæces), and that both taken together contain three per cent of nitrogen, then in one year they will amount to five hundred and forty-seven pounds, containing 16.41 pounds of nitrogen, a quantity sufficient to yield the nitrogen of eight hundred pounds of wheat, rye, oats, or nine hundred pounds of barley." He further adds, “This is much more than it is necessary to add to an acre of land in order to obtain, with the assistance of the nitrogen absorbed from the atmosphere, the richest crops every year.

"By adopting a system of rotation of crops, every town and farm might thus supply itself with the manure, which, besides containing the most nitrogen, contains also the most phosphates. By using at the same time bones and the lixiviated ashes of wood, animal excrements might be completely dispensed with on many kinds of soil." We emphasize the closing sentence of the paragraph, and in doing so refer you back to the analysis we have given above. Our Our space will not admit of our giving a comparative analysis of other manures: we simply allude to the fact of night-soil being pre-eminently rich in nitrogen, and why so? The reason is plain on account of the variety of food consumed by man. The herb of the field, the grain, the grass that feeds the beef and the smaller animals, that beef and those lesser consumers themselves, the vegetables the pride of his garden, the luscious fruits in all their countless variety, - mixed and mingled, victuals and drink, - all conglomerate this element of nitrogen. Hear what the same Liebig says of its impor-. tance: "We cannot suppose that a plant could attain maturity, even in the richest vegetable mould, without the presence of matter containing nitrogen, since we know that nitrogen exists in every part of the vegetable structure.”

By way of comparison, we would only add that one hundred parts of the urine of a healthy man are equal to thirteen hundred parts of the fresh dung of a horse (our authority the same, Liebig). Physiology teaches us, that, in the economy of man, his urine contains all the soluble mineral substances of his food: the solid excrements contain those ingredients which are not soluble in water. We would, in this respect, allude to the analogy between nature's process and man's analysis. Burn the food of man, and conserve the ashes, and the result is the same as with the internal fire of man, oxygen. The urine contains the soluble salts, and the fæces the insoluble salts, of both processes.

We have spoken of the advantages and value of night-soil as a manure, in reference to its containing the elements of all plants according to chemical analysis. Let us further consider its advantages relative to application; and first, it is a well-known fact that barnyard-manure is not immediately felt on the first crop in its intensity. While, undoubtedly, it feeds and stimulates the first crop, yet its powers are not therein exhausted; and this constitutes the boast of the unskilled husbandman. He will cart out the contents of his barnyard and manure-heaps by the hundred cords, and deposit them carefully in heaps on his fields, to be afterwards spread and ploughed in. He takes no note of the time spent in this laborious operation, but goes through it as the routine of a lifetime, with no better reason than that his father did so before him. The fact that he does not get the full benefit of his labor and manure in the first crop is to his mind a higher proof of the correctness of his tillage. Now, the idea of saving labor in the application of manure does not enter into his economy: he does not consider time as money, nor yet, again, can he understand that rapidity of action in a manure can be a valuable quality. In other words, he must be blind to the fact that he may have a manure which will not only save him time and labor, but which, at a less cost, will give him a more abundant crop, and also permanently enrich his land; and this may all be claimed for night-soil. We may here refer again to the practice of the Chinese, and the advantage they derive from the almost exclusive use of this manure. It is said that their fields seem to grow nothing but the plant which is the object of solicitude with the

farmer; that it is a difficult matter to find in their fields such a thing as a weed. What a contrast their fields must present to ours, which are annually sowed with a fresh crop of weeds, either by the crop already on the ground going to seed, or by a reseeding in the manure applied! What would a Chinese farmer think of one of our grass-lots in the month of June, white with the ox-eye daisy, and presenting the appearance of a struggle between the grass and the weed, for the possession of the land, with a poor show for the grass? Who can estimate the robbery of land by a crop of weeds?

If, by the use of night-soil as a manure, a farmer could create a revolution in this respect, would he not be a benefactor to his neighbors? The activity of night-soil as a manure is, then, one of its chief advantages; and this, in a great measure, is due to the very large proportion of azotized principles it possesses. It is from this azote that the ammonia is derived; and it is ascertained that a man passes nearly half an ounce of azote with his urine in the course of twentyfour hours.

Ammonia, it is scarcely necessary to add, is the stimulating principle of all manures, and especially that of guano. But, as our object is not a dissertation on agricultural chemistry, we will not further pursue the subject into the domains of science, or mystify it with technical terms. We have shown in brief the value of night-soil as a manure, the high estimation in which it is held in some countries, and the advantages in its use. We crave a little patience, while, in connection with its value, we show what is lost by its waste. In that admirable and thoroughly-practical work of H. Stephens and Professor Norton, entitled "The Farmer's Guide to Scientific and Practical Agriculture," the subject of liquid manures is very carefully considered. The contrast between the towns of the interior in England, where the sewage is taken advantage of for irrigation and for manuring gardenground, and the seaport towns where it is allowed to flow into the rivers or ocean, is most strikingly set forth. It is stated, that, in the environs of Edinburgh, poor sandy soils not worth above twenty shillings per acre, have, by the sewage of the town, been converted into rich meadows, yielding a rent of at least twenty pounds per acre. We quote the language of the book on the subject of waste of this mate

rial as clear and decisive. Now, saith the author, when we consider what escapes from every human being every year in dung and urine, and add to these the washings of soap-grease and other materials incidental to domestic purposes, we may imagine the enormous quantity of the most valuable matter as manure which is thus lost every year, literally wasted. Take one instance, a striking one, that of London.

It has been ascertained by Boussingault, that a man in a healthy state passes three pounds of urine daily; and Liebig states, that, in the same state, he voids five ounces and a half of dung. These two quantities give a total annual quantity of 1,220 pounds of liquid and solid manure voided by every person, on the average. Now, taking two million as the population of London, the quantities of those manures voided by the inhabitants of the metropolis amount annually to 1,089,285 tons. Chemistry has ascertained that the component parts of the excrements of man are as valuable to vegetation as those of guano; and, as the different sorts of guano sell from six pounds to ten pounds per ton, we are warranted in estimating the value of night-soil and urine at eight pounds per ton, which would give the entire value of this manure in London alone every year at £8,714,280, or $43,571,400 in gold. This may seem like exaggeration; but, put it at half the amount, and the subject is serious enough to address itself to every thinking mind. This waste is not the worst of it. We claim that there is a sanitary point of view, higher in importance than all considerations of monied value: we mean so far as this waste of sewage into the rivers affects the supply of drinking-water for our cities. We take two prominent instances within the State of New Jersey; the two largest cities both taking their supply of water from the same source, -the Passaic River. This river, furnishing an illimitable supply, takes the drainage of the large manufacturing town of Paterson, and the smaller towns along the river, to the points where the supply is taken up: in addition to these, the sewage of the city of Newark, with a hundred and twenty-five thousand population, discharged into the Passaic River, is carried up by every floodtide beyond the city, and to the very conduits where the water is taken for the supply of the two cities Newark and Jersey City. The operations of the United States Govern

ment in removing the reef, and the obstructions to navigation in the river above the city of Newark, have greatly facili tated this flow; and there can now be no question but that the supply of each city is contaminated by this sewage. The joint commission of Newark and Jersey City employed an eminent chemist to analyze the waters of the Passaic as furnished the two cities. We quote so much of his report treating of sewage pollution of rivers as applies forcibly to our subject, and the sanitary point now involved: "That class of scientists who study microscopic fungi, mycologists (in common with many distinguished scientific physicians), are now settling down to the belief that most epidemic and epizootic diseases are accompanied (as causes, not merely as effects) by certain fungoid growths: in other words, that these diseases are produced by vegetables parasites. When these fungi take root in live animal tissues, they develop into abnormal and monstrous forms, which have not been recognized until lately; but it is now known that the spores discharged (by millions of millions it may be) with the excreta, when cultivated outside the body, come back again to their normal forms, and the fungi are recognizable. Thus in common dysentery and cholera-morbus, the spores, when replanted, produce a common fungoid parasite of wheat; while, during the fearful Asiatic cholera, the spores produced a parasite of the East-India rice-plant. These facts (if they must be admitted as such, which seems inevitable) are suggestive with regard to sewage contamination of rivers. One case of cholera brought to Paterson, or any of the towns lying on the upper Passaic, might fill the whole river with the living seeds of the pestilence. A like propagation would take place from Newark throughout Jersey City and Hoboken, and even throughout Newark itself. I am aware that these are appalling considerations, and may be rejected by some as contingencies too remote and dreadful to be pos sible. But human experience, alas! will not countenance any such puerile view as this. We must stare these horrors sternly in the face, bring all our science to bear, and study prevention, rather than wait till called upon to endure the evil when it shall have passed beyond our cure."

It is not only river-water that is contaminated by the sewage of the cities; but the wells, from which many of the