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,