import of this solution of how to maintain, in the millions of
homes, a constantly accessible supply of absolutely fresh and
thoroughly sanitary animal food in the form of meat and eggs. The
great density of population in these countries makes the problem of
supplying eggs to the people very different from that in the United
States. Our 250,600,000 fowl in 1900 was at the rate of three to
each person but in Japan, with her 16,500,000 fowl, she had in 1906
but one for every three people. Her number per square mile of
cultivated land however was 825, while in the United States, in
1900, the number of fowls per square mile of improved farm land was
but 387. To give to Japan three fowls to each person there would
needs be an average of about nine to each acre of her cultivated
land, whereas in the United States there were in 1900 nearly two
acres of improved farm land for each fowl. We have no statistics
regarding the number of fowl in China or the number of eggs produced
but the total is very large and she exports to Japan. The large boat
load of eggs seen in Fig. 97 had just arrived from the country,
coming into Shanghai in one of her canals.
Besides applying canal mud directly to the fields in the ways
described there are other very extensive practices of composting it
with organic matter of one or another kind and of then using the
compost on the fields. The next three illustrations show some of the
steps and something of the tremendous labor of body, willingly and
cheerfully incurred, and something of the forethought practiced,
that homes may be maintained and that grandparents, parents, wives
and children need neither starve nor beg. We had reached a place
seen in Fig. 98, where eight bearers were moving winter compost to a
recently excavated pit in an adjoining field shown in Fig. 99.
Four months before the camera fixed the activity shown, men had
brought waste from the stables of Shanghai fifteen miles by water,
depositing it upon the canal bank between layers of thin mud dipped
from the canal, and left it to ferment. The eight men were removing
this compost to the pit seen in Fig. 99, then nearly filled. Near by
in the same field was a second pit seen in Fig. 100, excavated three
feet deep and rimmed about with the earth removed, making it two
feet deeper.
After these pits had been filled the clover which was in blossom
beyond the pits would be cut and stacked upon them to a height of
five to eight feet and this also saturated, layer by layer, with mud
brought from the canal, and allowed to ferment twenty to thirty days
until the juices set free had been absorbed by the winter compost
beneath, helping to carry the ripening of that still further, and
until the time had arrived for fitting the ground for the next crop.
This organic matter, fermented with the canal mud, would then be
distributed by the men over the field, carried a third time on their
shoulders, notwithstanding its weight was many tons.
This manure had been collected, loaded and carried fifteen miles by
water; it had been unloaded upon the bank and saturated with canal
mud; the field had been fitted for clover the previous fall and
seeded; the pits had been dug in the fields; the winter compost had
been carried and placed in the pits; the clover was to be cut,
carried by the men on their shoulders, stacked layer by layer and
saturated with mud dipped from the canal; the whole would later be
distributed over the field and finally the earth removed from the
pits would be returned to them, that the service of no ground upon
which a crop might grow should be lost.
Such are the tasks to which Chinese farmers hold themselves, because
they are convinced desired results will follow, because their
holdings are so small and their families so large. These practices
are so extensive in China and so fundamental in the part they play
in the maintenance of high productive power in their soils that we
made special effort to follow them through different phases. In Fig.
101 we saw the preparation being made to build one of the clover
compost stacks saturated with canal mud. On the left the thin mud
had been dipped from the canal; way-farers in the center were
crossing the foot-bridge of the country by-way; and beyond rises the
conical thatch to shelter the water buffalo when pumping for
irrigating the rice crop to be fed with this plant food in
preparation. On the right were two large piles of green clover
freshly cut and a woman of the family at one of them was spreading
it to receive the mud, while the men-folk were coming from the field
with more clover on their carrying poles. We came upon this scene
just before the dinner hour and after the workers had left another
photograph was taken at closer range and from a different side,
giving the view seen in Fig. 102. The mud had been removed some days
and become too stiff to spread, so water was being brought from the
canal in the pails at the right for reducing its consistency to that
of a thin porridge, permitting it to more completely smear and
saturate the clover. The stack grew, layer by layer, each saturated
with the mud, tramped solid with the bare feet, trousers rolled
high. Provision had been made here for building four other stacks.
Further along we came upon the scene in Fig. 103 where the building
of the stack of compost and the gathering of the mud from the canal
were simultaneous. On one side of the canal the son, using a
clam-shell form of dipper made of basket-work, which could be opened
and shut with a pair of bamboo handles, had nearly filled the middle
section of his boat with the thin ooze, while on the other side,
against the stack which was building, the mother was emptying a
similar boat, using a large dipper, also provided with a bamboo
handle. The man on the stack is a good scale for judging its size.
We came next upon a finished stack on the bank of another canal,
shown in Fig. 104, where our umbrella was set to serve as a scale.
This stack measured ten by ten feet on the ground, was six feet high
and must have contained more than twenty tons of the green compost.
At the same place, two other stacks had been started, each about
fourteen by fourteen feet, and foundations were laid for six others,
nine in all.
During twenty or more days this green nitrogenous organic matter is
permitted to lie fermenting in contact with the fine soil particles
of the ooze with which it had been charged. This is a remarkable
practice in that it is a very old, intensive application of an
important fundamental principle only recently understood and added
to the science of agriculture, namely, the power of organic matter,
decaying rapidly in contact with soil, to liberate from it soluble
plant food; and so it would be a great mistake to say that these
laborious practices are the result of ignorance, of a lack of
capacity for accurate thinking or of power to grasp and utilize. If
the agricultural lands of the United States are ever called upon to
feed even 1200 millions of people, a number proportionately less
than one-half that being fed in Japan today, very different
practices from those we are now following will have been adopted. We
can believe they will require less human bodily effort and be more
efficient. But the knowledge which can make them so is not yet in
the possession of our farmers, much less the conviction that plant
feeding and more persistent and better directed soil management are
necessary to such yields as will then be required.
Later, just before the time for transplanting rice, we returned to
the same district to observe the manner of applying this compost to
the field, and Fig. 105 is prepared from photographs taken then,
illustrating the activities of one family, as seen during the
morning of May 28th. Their home was in a near-by village and their
holding was divided into four nearly rectangular paddies, graded to
water level, separated by raised rims, and having an area of nearly
two acres. Three of these little fields are partly shown in the
illustration, and the fourth in Fig. 160. In the background of the
upper section of Fig. 105, and under the thatched shelter, was a
native Chinese cow, blindfolded and hitched to the power-wheel of a
large wooden-chain pump, lifting water from the canal and flooding
the field in the foreground, to soften the soil for plowing. Riding
on the power-wheel was a girl of some twelve years, another of seven
and a baby. They were there for entertainment and to see that the
cow kept at work. The ground had been sufficiently softened so that
the father had begun plowing, the cow sinking to her knees as she
walked. In the same paddy, but shown in the section below, a boy was
spreading the clover compost with his hands, taking care that it was
finely divided and evenly scattered. He had been once around before
the plowing began. This compost had been brought from a stack by the
side of a canal, and two other men were busy still bringing the
material to one of the other paddies, one of whom, with his baskets
on the carrying pole appears in the third section. Between these two
paddies was the one seen at the bottom of the illustration, which
had matured a crop of rape that had been pulled and was lying in
swaths ready to be moved. Two other men were busy here, gathering
the rape into large bundles and carrying it to the village home,
where the women were threshing out the seed, taking care not to
break the stems which, after threshing, were tied into bundles for
fuel. The seed would be ground and from it an oil expressed, while
the cake would be used as a fertilizer.
This crop of rape is remarkable for the way it fits into the
economies of these people. It is a near relative of mustard and
cabbage; it grows rapidly during the cooler portions of the season,
the spring crop ripening before the planting of rice and cotton; its
young shoots and leaves are succulent, nutritious, readily digested
and extensively used as human food, boiled and eaten fresh, or
salted for winter use, to be served with rice; the mature stems,
being woody, make good fuel; and it bears a heavy crop of seed, rich
in oil, which has been extensively used for lights and in cooking,
while the rape seed cake is highly prized as a manure and very
extensively so used.
In the early spring the country is luxuriantly green with the large
acreage of rape, later changing to a sea of most brilliant yellow
and finally to an ashy grey when the leaves fall and the stems and
pods ripen. Like the dairy cow, rape produces a fat, in the ratio of
about forty pounds of oil to a hundred pounds of seed, which may be
eaten, burned or sold without materially robbing the soil of its
fertility if the cake and the ashes from the stems are returned to
the fields, the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen of which the oil is
almost wholly composed coming from the atmosphere rather than from
the soil.
In Japan rape is grown as a second crop on both the upland and paddy
fields, and in 1906 she produced more than 5,547,000 bushels of the
seed; $1,845,000 worth of rape seed cake, importing enough more to
equal a total value of $2,575,000, all of which was used as a
fertilizer, the oil being exported. The yield of seed per acre in
Japan ranges between thirteen and sixteen bushels, and the farmer
whose field was photographed estimated that his returns from the
crop would be at the rate of 640 pounds of seed per acre, worth
$6.19, and 8,000 pounds of stems worth as fuel $5.16 per acre.
IX
THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE
One of the most remarkable agricultural practices adopted by any
civilized people is the centuries-long and well nigh universal
conservation and utilization of all human waste in China, Korea and
Japan, turning it to marvelous account in the maintenance of soil
fertility and in the production of food. To understand this
evolution it must be recognized that mineral fertilizers so
extensively employed in modern western agriculture, like the
extensive use of mineral coal, had been a physical impossibility to
all people alike until within very recent years. With this fact must
be associated the very long unbroken life of these nations and the
vast numbers their farmers have been compelled to feed.
When we reflect upon the depleted fertility of our own older farm
lands, comparatively few of which have seen a century's service, and
upon the enormous quantity of mineral fertilizers which are being
applied annually to them in order to secure paying yields, it
becomes evident that the time is here when profound consideration
should be given to the practices the Mongolian race has maintained
through many centuries, which permit it to be said of China that
one-sixth of an acre of good land is ample for the maintenance of
one person, and which are feeding an average of three people per
acre of farm land in the three southernmost of the four main islands
of Japan.
From the analyses of mixed human excreta made by Wolff in Europe and
by Kellner in Japan it appears that, as an average, these carry in
every 2000 pounds 12.7 pounds of nitrogen, 4 pounds of potassium and
1.7 pounds of phosphorus. On this basis and that of Carpenter, who
estimates the average amount of excreta per day for the adult at 40
ounces, the average annual production per million of adult
population is 5,794,300 pounds of nitrogen; 1,825,000 pounds of
potassium, and 775,600 pounds of phosphorus carried in 456,250 tons
of excreta. The figures which Hall cites in Fertilizers and Manures,
would make these amounts 7,940,000 pounds of nitrogen; 3,070,500
pounds of potassium, and 1,965,600 pounds of phosphorus, but the
figures he takes and calls high averages give 12,000,000 of
nitrogen; 4,151,000 pounds of potassium, and 3,057,600 pounds of
phosphorus.
In 1908 the International Concessions of the city of Shanghai sold
to one Chinese contractor for $31,000, gold, the privilege of
collecting 78,000 tons of human waste, under stipulated regulations,
and of removing it to the country for sale to farmers. The flotilla
of boats seen in Fig. 106 is one of several engaged daily in
Shanghai throughout the year in this service.
Dr. Kawaguchi, of the National Department of Agriculture and
Commerce, taking his data from their records, informed us that the
human manure saved and applied to the fields of Japan in 1908
amounted to 23,850,295 tons, which is an average of 1.75 tons per
acre of their 21,321 square miles of cultivated land in their four
main islands.
On the basis of the data of Wolff, Kellner and Carpenter, or of
Hall, the people of the United States and of Europe are pouring into
the sea, lakes or rivers and into the underground waters from
5,794,300 to 12,000,000 pounds of nitrogen; 1,881,900 to 4,151,000
pounds of potassium, and 777,200 to 3,057,600 pounds of phosphorus
per million of adult population annually, and this waste we esteem
one of the great achievements of our civilization. In the Far East,
for more than thirty centuries, these enormous wastes have been
religiously saved and today the four hundred million of adult
population send back to their fields annually 150,000 tons of
phosphorus; 376,000 tons of potassium, and 1,158,000 tons of
nitrogen comprised in a gross weight exceeding 182 million tons,
gathered from every home, from the country villages and from the
great cities like Hankow-Wuchang-Hanyang with its 1,770,000 people
swarming on a land area delimited by a radius of four miles.
Man is the most extravagant accelerator of waste the world has ever
endured. His withering blight has fallen upon every living thing
within his reach, himself not excepted; and his besom of destruction
in the uncontrolled hands of a generation has swept into the sea
soil fertility which only centuries of life could accumulate, and
yet this fertility is the substratum of all that is living. It must
be recognized that the phosphate deposits which we are beginning to
return to our fields are but measures of fertility lost from older
soils, and indices of processes still in progress. The rivers of
North America are estimated to carry to the sea more than 500 tons
of phosphorus with each cubic mile of water. To such loss modern
civilization is adding that of hydraulic sewage disposal through
which the waste of five hundred millions of people might be more
than 194,300 tons of phosphorus annually, which could not be
replaced by 1,295,000 tons of rock phosphate, 75 per cent pure. The
Mongolian races, with a population now approaching the figure named;
occupying an area little more than one-half that of the United
States, tilling less than 800,000 square miles of land, and much of
this during twenty, thirty or perhaps forty centuries; unable to
avail themselves of mineral fertilizers, could not survive and
tolerate such waste. Compelled to solve the problem of avoiding such
wastes, and exercising the faculty which is characteristic of the
race, they "cast down their buckets where they were", as
*A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly
vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,
"Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly
vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A
second time the signal, "Water, water; Send us water!" ran up from
the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket
where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was
answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the
distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his
bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth
of the Amazon river. *Booker T. Washington, Atlanta address.
Not even in great cities like Canton, built in the meshes of
tideswept rivers and canals; like Hankow on the banks of one of the
largest rivers in the world; nor yet in modern Shanghai, Yokohama or
Tokyo, is such waste permitted. To them such a practice has meant
race suicide and they have resisted the temptation so long that it
has ceased to exist.
Dr. Arthur Stanley, Health officer of the city of Shanghai, in his
annual report for 1899, considering this subject as a municipal
problem, wrote:
"Regarding the bearing on the sanitation of Shanghai of the
relationship between Eastern and Western hygiene, it may be said,
that if prolonged national life is indicative of sound sanitation,
the Chinese are a race worthy of study by all who concern themselves
with Public Health. Even without the returns of a Registrar-General
it is evident that in China the birth rate must very considerably
exceed the death rate, and have done so in an average way during the
three or four thousand years that the Chinese nation has existed.
Chinese hygiene, when compared with medieval English, appears to
advantage. The main problem of sanitation is to cleanse the dwelling
day by day, and if this can be done at a profit so much the better.
While the ultra-civilized Western elaborates destructors for burning
garbage at a financial loss and turns sewage into the sea, the
Chinaman uses both for manure. He wastes nothing while the sacred
duty of agriculture is uppermost in his mind. And in reality recent
bacterial work has shown that faecal matter and house refuse are
best destroyed by returning them to clean soil, where natural
purification takes place. The question of destroying garbage can, I
think, under present conditions in Shanghai, be answered in a
decided negative. While to adopt the water-carriage system for
sewage and turn it into the river, whence the water supply is
derived, would be an act of sanitary suicide. It is best, therefore,
to make use of what is good in Chinese hygiene, which demands
respect, being, as it is, the product of an evolution extending from
more than a thousand years before the Christian era."
The storage of such waste in China is largely in stoneware
receptacles such as are seen in Fig. 109, which are hard-burned,
glazed terra-cotta urns, having capacities ranging from 500 to 1000
pounds. Japan more often uses sheltered cement-lined pits such as
are seen in Fig. 110.
In the three countries the carrying to the fields is oftenest in
some form of pail, as seen in Fig. 111, a pair of which are borne
swinging from the carrying pole. In applying the liquid to the field
or garden the long handle dipper is used, seen in Fig. 112.
We are beginning to husband with some economy the waste from our
domestic animals but in this we do not approach that of China, Korea
and Japan. People in China regularly search for and collect
droppings along the country and caravan roads. Repeatedly, when
walking through city streets, we observed such materials quickly and
apparently eagerly gathered, to be carefully stored under conditions
which ensure small loss from either leaching or unfavorable
fermentation. In some mulberry orchards visited the earth had been
carefully hoed back about the trunks of trees to a depth of three or
four inches from a circle having a diameter of six to eight feet,
and upon these areas were placed the droppings of silkworms, the
moulted skins, together with the bits of leaves and stem left after
feeding. Some disposition of such waste must be made. They return at
once to the orchard all but the silk produced from the leaves;
unnecessary loss is thus avoided and the material enters at once the
service of forcing the next crop of leaves.
On the farm of Mrs. Wu, near Kashing, while studying the operation
of two irrigation pumps driven by two cows, lifting water to flood
her twenty-five acres of rice field preparatory to transplanting, we
were surprised to observe that one of the duties of the lad who had
charge of the animals was to use a six-quart wooden dipper with a
bamboo handle six feet long to collect all excreta, before they fell
upon the ground, and transfer them to a receptacle provided for the
purpose. There came a flash of resentment that such a task was set
for the lad, for we were only beginning to realize to what lengths
the practice of economy may go, but there was nothing irksome
suggested in the boy's face. He performed the duty as a matter of
course and as we thought it through there was no reason why it
should have been otherwise. In fact, the only right course was being
taken. Conditions would have been worse if the collection had not
been made. It made possible more rice. Character of substantial
quality was building in the lad which meant thrift in the growing
man and continued life for the nation.
We have adverted to the very small number of flies observed anywhere
in the course of our travel, but its significance we did not realize
until near the end of our stay. Indeed, for some reason, flies were
more in evidence during the first two days on the steamship, out
from Yokohama on our return trip to America, than at any time before
on our journey. It is to be expected that the eternal vigilance
which seizes every waste, once it has become such, putting it in
places of usefulness, must contribute much toward the destruction of
breeding places, and it may be these nations have been mindful of
the wholesomeness of their practice and that many phases of the
evolution of their waste disposal system have been dictated by and
held fast to through a clear conception of sanitary needs.