The Dwelling House

by George Vivian Poore

Fig. 14.

A, cottages; B, house and garden (let for a girls' school); C, C, garden ground used for sanitary purposes, measuring (exclusive of grass and paths) about 1¼ acre; W, well, D, D, D, D, D, small stream, supplied partly by springs and partly from river.

The plan (fig. [14]) shows the position of the cottages, which form a cul-de-sac running from the street to the river, and also the position of the garden ground. This ground, which is on both sides of the cottages, measures, exclusive of paths and turf, about one and a quarter acre. Nearly an acre of the ground has, together with a house, been let for a girls' school, and in the cultivation of this piece the writer has no authority.

The cottages are fitted with 'pail closets,' with the exception of one only, which has a 'dry catch,' which is much superior from every point of view to a pail closet, and in course of time it is hoped that all the closets will be converted into 'dry catches,' of which more will be said hereafter. The contents of the pails are removed every morning, and are superficially buried in a furrow such as a gardener makes when turning up the ground with a spade. One must insist that the covering of the excreta cannot be too light, as it is essential for the due humification of the organic refuse that the air have access to the pores of the soil; and one may add that when the pores of the soil are sealed up by drenching rains, as was the case in the autumn of 1894, the process of humification is delayed, and certainly the excreta are not (owing to their sticky, glutinous nature) washed out of the soil by the heaviest rains experienced in this country. The method of superficial burial has this further advantage, that the tillage of the soil and the burying of the excreta are carried on by a single operation. As the cottages are close to the garden, the process of removing and burying the contents of the pails is done in less than an hour. Directly this has been accomplished, in the early hours of the morning, there is an end of anything which can offend either the eyes or the nose.

After the excreta have been superficially buried plants of the cabbage tribe are dibbled in as soon as may be. This is often done within three days, and the cabbages are sure to flourish. Seeds do not flourish with any certainty, and, although I have seen fair crops of turnips, peas, onions, &c., when the weather has been favourable, such crops are liable to fail, while cabbage as a first crop is practically sure to succeed. I can call to mind a spot in the Andover garden which had been sown with turnips and radishes as a first crop after manuring. The produce was Brobdingnagian, but worthless except to dig into the ground. The development of green head was very great, the roots were huge and woolly. When the plan of operations which has been described (daily superficial burial followed by cabbage planting) was commenced, some ten years ago, many were the prophecies of failure. The practical men shook their heads and said I never should succeed that way, but that I was 'bound to store the stuff in a heap to allow it to ripen before being put on the land.' As a sanitarian one was naturally anxious to get the excreta below the surface of the ground as soon as possible, and I now feel confident in stating that the plan I recommend is the best from the sanitary, agricultural, and financial points of view. Sanitarily it is the best because there is no delay in the safe bestowal of the excreta; agriculturally it is best because no ammonia or other volatile body is given to the air, but all goes to enrich the land; and financially it is best because it involves moving the dung once only instead of twice; the same operation that tills the land serves to cover the dung, and while the excreta are 'ripening' for other crops the farmer gets a crop of cabbage. After the cabbage crop the ground is still very rich and will grow everything or anything, to which the soil and situation are suited, in high perfection.

The garden is in great contrast to an ordinary sewage farm. It is used as a pleasaunce, and its luxurious herbage and bright colouring are very beautiful. The ordinary garden crops show great exuberance of growth, and the summer fruit trees (apples, pears, peaches, and nectarines) are usually hung with a very bountiful crop of fruit.

Fig. 15.—Garden at Andover.

The illustration (fig. [15]) shows the central green path of the garden, and although the rich colouring of the tritomas, gladioli, stocks, phloxes, asters, lobelias, calceolarias, roses, and dahlias, cannot be reproduced, the illustration will serve to give some idea of the general luxuriance. The writer claims to have proved (all chemical analyses to the contrary notwithstanding) that human excreta have a very high manurial value, and this will be borne out by the picture.