'Thou art so full of miseryWere it not better not to be?'
'Thou art so full of miseryWere it not better not to be?'
'Thou art so full of miseryWere it not better not to be?'
'Thou art so full of misery
Were it not better not to be?'
These regulations of the London Building Act seem to point to the fact that 'betterment' really means overcrowding in houses of enormous cubic capacity.
I shall be told, and rightly, that the horrible overcrowding of houses in the centre of London is caused by the high price of building land, and that it cannot be prevented. Further, I shall be told that, in spite of the overcrowding and general unsanitary conditions, rents areincreasing. This is also true as regards some districts, but, as I have said before, there is no relation between hygiene and money-getting. But there is no reason why we should deceive ourselves as to the results of overcrowding. They are set forth with absolute plainness by the Registrar-General, and we must be thankful that we have an official statistician who is above local considerations, and who does not feel himself called upon to keep unpleasant facts in the background. There is yet one Balaam among the prophets.
I have for years combated the oft-repeated statements as to the 'healthiness' of London, not because I expect that London will alter its way, but because rural places and the Colonies should not blindly follow the lead of London, in the belief that they are following a good sanitary model, and that disastrous consequences will not inevitably follow upon a reckless overcrowding of houses.
The prime object of overcrowding was for safety. Cities were originally walled fortresses, and people crowded into them for protection, and were killed by epidemics instead of by their enemies. Modern sanitation favours overcrowding, and this it is which makes it so popular, for overcrowding favours money-getting.
When sewer pipes and water pipes are laid throughout a district it becomes possible (but not till then) to build houses without curtilage, except a 10-foot back yard.
If, therefore, rural places are reckless enough to perpetrate a 'sewage scheme,' it becomes very necessary to check the overcrowding of houses.
I am sorry to say that the Local Government Board does not appear to be sensible of this necessity.
My reason for this statement is (to quote an examplewithin my own knowledge) that the Local Government Board a little more than a year ago sanctioned the adoption of 'model' (!) by-laws by the borough of Andover, and on examining these by-laws, which cover 69 closely printed large octavo pages, and comprise hundreds of sections and sub-sections, the bulk of which must be quite incomprehensible to the Town Council, I find that as regards buildings many of the clauses are practically identical with those of the London Building Act.
The Local Government Board does not seem to recognise that circumstances alter cases, and that the regulations which may be beneficial in the crowded and filthy slums of a great city, may he mischievous in a village or country town. Andover is an exceedingly healthy little town, as the table on p.99will show, and in it there must be very few, if any, houses more than 50 feet high, and the great majority of the houses and cottages have large yards or gardens.
And yet the Local Government Board sanctions regulations for this town which permit the erection of dwelling houses ahundred feet high!with a backyard 25 feet deep!! and it further allows the adoption of the minimum of 150 square feet of back yard for dwelling houses.
In illustration of this, reference may be made to figs.32,33,34, which are borrowed from Knight's 'Model By-laws,' published under the authority of the Local Government Board. Fig.32shows the 'model' open space for a cottage, fig.33for a house up to 25 feet high, and fig.34the maximum which is necessary, even though the house be 100 feet high or more.
These regulations may be good in London, but when such regulations are printed in the by-laws of rural places they become dangerous and wicked suggestions, which one fears the local builders will not be slow to adopt, especiallyif the town be sewered throughout, which happily as yet is not the case.
Fig. 32.Fig. 32.
Fig. 32.
Fig. 32.
Fig. 33.Fig. 33.
Fig. 33.
Fig. 33.
Fig. 34.Fig. 34.
Fig. 34.
Fig. 34.
These elaborate building regulations as applied tocountry places are absurd. I do not say that in the case of houses abutting on the streets and which touch other houses some control by the local authority is not necessary, or that the local authority is not to exercise supervision as to the manner of making connections of houses with sewers, water pipes, and gas pipes.
But it is clear that all harassing regulations are out of place when they are applied to isolated dwellings which are wholly detached and separated by a moderate interval (say a distance equal to the height) from the boundaries of other premises. The man who builds a detached house ought to be encouraged, and not worried, and the insurance offices and the owner may be left to see that the construction of the house is good enough.
These by-laws contain a prohibition of overhanging storeys (in the old English fashion), which may be reasonable enough in crowded streets, but are unreasonable and silly when applied to isolated dwellings. A friend of mine had a fancy to build a house of this kind in the middle of three acres of land which he bought in Hertfordshire, and after he had been at the expense of getting out his plans, &c., he found that such a building wasagainst the by-laws. However, he discovered means to 'square' the local jacks-in-office, and his very pretty house was built, and is a decided ornament to the district.
These by-laws are an expense to ratepayers, and they increase the cost of buildings. Elaborate plans and descriptions have to be furnished, and the buildings have to be inspected at various periods of their construction, and, of course, all variations of plan which may appear necessary in the course of construction must also be submitted and 'passed' by the local authority. It may happen that there are members of the local council who understand the technicalities of the building trade; but even if this be thecase, it is manifestly unjust that the plans of a builder who is outside the council should be submitted to and judged by a competitor who happens to be inside. As a rule, the council is completely in the hands of the local surveyor, and the local surveyor exercises despotic power over all building operations.
This leads us to ask the question, 'What is a surveyor?' Lawyers and doctors have to be 'legally qualified,' and the ratepayers have some guarantee that the town clerk and medical officer of health know something of their business. But it is difficult to get a similar guarantee with regard to that terrible despot, the surveyor to the local board.
Whether the surveyor be learned or ignorant in the matters which he undertakes to survey must always be a matter of doubt, but it is evident that a person who exercises such arbitrary power ought on no account to be allowed to practise his profession for his private gain.Humanum est errare.We must not expect an impossible standard of morality in any man, and no surveyor ought to be placed in the invidious position of sitting in judgment on his own plans.
These arbitrary by-laws must tend to check building operations, and to hinder the development of the art of the architect and the science of the builder. The restrictions are another instance of
'Art made tongue-tied by authority,And Folly, doctor-like, controlling skill;'
'Art made tongue-tied by authority,And Folly, doctor-like, controlling skill;'
'Art made tongue-tied by authority,And Folly, doctor-like, controlling skill;'
'Art made tongue-tied by authority,
And Folly, doctor-like, controlling skill;'
and I feel certain that, in the interests of the public health, builders of isolated dwellings ought to be allowed to escape from the despotism which is so dear to modern democracy.
Everything which tends to encourage the provision of adequate space round dwellings is a great gain.
Such by-laws as I have quoted, when applied to countryplaces, and when no exceptions such as I have indicated are made, are a downright incentive to overcrowding, and mischievous in the highest degree.
Everything which increases the cost of the dwelling must tend to increase overcrowding.
The London rents are enormous; the artisan pays 7s.or 8s.for accommodation which he could get in a village for 1s.6d., and in a country town for 2s.6d.
The rich man pays his 200l., 300l., or more for a house (without a square inch of curtilage) which out of London would fetch 40l.or 50l.at most.
In London it happens, probably, more often than elsewhere that people pay in house-rent a sum which is an excessive proportion of their income, and their finances feel the strain of slight increments to the cost of the dwelling, and they are often driven to take lodgers or 'paying-guests'; or people apparently well off give up their houses and take a 'flat,' in which the crowding is excessive.
This kind of thing goes on among the well-to-do classes, and certainly to a greater extent among the poor.
When we consider the charges, other than rent, in London as compared with country houses, we must never forget that, rents being three or more times as high in London as elsewhere, the rating in the pound ought to be multiplied by three or four before we can compare London rates with country rates.
Or we must take some other basis of comparison, such as the area occupied or the cubic contents. A house which I lived in in London for twenty-five years occupies an area of 18 by 72 feet, or 1,296 square feet, or 144 square yards.
The rent was originally 180l., which was raised to 200l.when the lease was renewed in 1892;i.e.the rent was originally 1l.5s.per square yard, and is now 1l.8s.per square yard. 'The rateable value' has been gradually pushed up from 150l.to 184l., and the gross value has lately been set down at 220l., or 10 per cent. more than the rent (because the tenant undertakes to do the repairs).
The changes other than rent have been as follows:—
18731896£s.d.£s.d.Income Tax}915014184Inhabited House Duty}Parochial Rates300055194Water6807106Total46307882Rent1800020000Grand total2263027882
Thus it will be seen that the cost of this house (which has not been enlarged in any way) has been increased by 23 per cent. The rent has increased 11 per cent., or 20l.a year. The rates have increased by nearly 87 per cent., or very nearly 26l.a year.
The imperial taxes have increased nearly 53 per cent., or 5l.3s.4d.per year, and the water by nearly 18 per cent., or 1l.2s.6d.per year. It will be noted that while the tenant in this case submitted to an increase of 11 per cent., the charges over which the tenant has practically no control have increased in a much higher ratio, and now amount to 78l.8s.2d., or more than 10s.6d.per square yard of occupied land, the total cost of the house being 1l.18s.6d.per square yard, or, including repairs, more than 2l.per square yard.
The total obligatory charges (rent, rates, taxes, andwater), which in 1873 were 226l., had risen in 1896 to 278l.In the same time the interest on 100l.invested in Consols has fallen from 3l.5s.to 2l.10s.
In 1893 a sum of 7,000l.invested in Consols would have paid the obligatory charges on this house. In 1896 these charges could only be met by a sum of 11,000l.invested in Consols.
Looked at in this way, the cost of the dwelling has risen 57 per cent. in 23 years, the size of the dwelling remaining constant.
The charge for water has been included because no house is habitable without it, and in this case the tenant cannot sink a well, because the house is totally without curtilage of any kind, and the rain-water having fallen through the London air is so foully dirty as to be unusable.
The householders of London rightly view with alarm the rapid increase of the sum levied for rates. This sum has increased at the rate of more than 3 per cent. per annum during the twenty-five years I lived in the house I have been describing, and now amounts to rather more than 7s.6d.per square yard occupied. The average householder is naturally nervous and apprehensive; he is getting unwilling to take a house for a long term, and is squeezing his household into 'flats,' in which (as the landlord pays the rates) the yearly expenditure on house accommodation is fairly calculable. The attractiveness of the flat is further enhanced by short-term leases, so that, should illness or a financial mishap befall him, he will be less heavily weighted than would be the case if he were the owner of a long, unmarketable lease.
I think we may take it for granted that if the well-to-do classes are showing a tendency to overcrowd, this tendency will be found to get progressively more intense as we descend in the social scale. The well-to-do occupiers offlats have to be content with what may be called 'rather close quarters,' but their servants are often squeezed into rooms scarcely bigger than cupboards. It is not conceivable that those who are in a dependent position will have better accommodation than those whom they serve.
The final question is, What can be done to prevent overcrowding of houses and of persons in the house?
I freely admit that very little can be done in big towns, and people must be left to judge for themselves as to whether they will allow their children to run the extra risk of death, crippling disease, or defective development, inseparable from life in a crowded city. The statistics of the Registrar-General (i.e.the Annual Summary and the Decennial Supplement) show clearly what these risks are, but it is necessary to add that some of the local statistics manifest at times an undue desire to minimise the mortality of the district from which they emanate.
A great metropolitan city like London, concerning which we are educated from our cradles to utter big boasts, exercises an enormous influence on public opinion, but it is perfectly clear that she is a dangerous model to follow in the matter of house-construction.
I call to mind the case of a great London builder who bought a country mansion in a park. He was a very able man, but when he carried out some alterations and additions to his new house he found it impossible to cast away his town-bred ideas, and accordingly built underground kitchens and coal cellars, and had the coals put into his cellar through a plate in the pavement just outside the drawing-room window. He had been so long accustomed to build houses with a minimum of area, that when he hadan unlimited space at his disposal he failed to utilise or appreciate the advantages of such a boon.
Country places should be careful to avoid the adoption, as by-laws, of regulations originally framed with the idea of mitigating the horrors of the London slums. With regard to these regulations, it must be remembered that 'the trail of the Cockney is over them all,' and it has been shown that regulations, especially as to space round dwellings, which may be beneficial in the Seven Dials become mischievous suggestions when printed and circulated as the by-laws of a country district. It seems almost incredible that the Local Government Board should sanction the adoption of some of these by-laws by country communities.
The exigencies of space in London have led to the construction of underground offices, with the result that at least a tenth of the inhabitants of modern London are cave-dwellers; and in the by-laws from which I have quoted I find no attempt to penalise, or in any way to restrict, the perpetration of similar barbarities in the country.
If there be underground 'offices,' the drains of the house will leave it at a level of some 10 feet below the ground level, and the public sewer must be at least 11 feet underground, and the laying of sewers at such a depth is relatively expensive. As there are extra charges for high level water service, ought there not to be similar extra charges for low level drain service?
The great blot on modern sanitary legislation is the entire absence of any encouragement for the sanitary well-doers.
Sanitary legislation is founded on a basis of mischievous lop-sided socialism, in which the sanitary well doer is heavily taxed for the support of the jerry-builder, and iscalled upon to pay for all the shortcomings of the negligent and filthy.
Encouragement ought to be given to the man who builds a house with ample curtilage; and if such house be removed from all other dwellings by a distance equal to its height, he ought to be freed from the restrictions of harassing by-laws, and the despotic control of district surveyors whose credentials are often of the flimsiest, and whose ideas are stereotyped.
The idea which was prevalent a few years ago, that open spaces should be taxed at 'site value' is, one must hope, dead. Its obviously mischievous tendency needs no comment.
The only equitable basis for calculating the rateable value of a house for sanitary purposes is the cubic capacity, because, as a broad rule, the bigger the house the greater is the amount of work which it throws upon streets and sewers. The 'grounds' or 'curtilage' of a house ought to be very leniently taxed, although one must admit that streets and pavements ought to be paid for in proportion to house and ground frontage.
If a man spend money in beautifying his house without enlarging it, this ought not to entail an increase in rateable value for sanitary purposes. Such beautifyings are good for trade in a proper sense, and ought not in the interests of the community to be checked.
The rich man who has a fancy for a fine house has already had his income handsomely taxed, and it seems scarcely just or wise that he should be further directly taxed for spending his income.
Horses if of similar dimensions used to be equally taxed, and no distinction was made between the 'Thoroughbred' and the 'Screw,' which was quite equitable, because the owner of the former had already paid income tax.
I have been at some pains to point out that in country or semi-rural districts, where it is possible to give a house a decent curtilage or small garden, it is easy for a householder to make the sanitation of his dwelling quite independent of the local authority. In fact, the householder is able if he be so minded to make his sanitation complete, and to finish, on his own premises and to his own profit, that 'circulation of organic matter' which is a law of Nature, and the only true basis upon which the science of sanitation can possibly stand firm.
The householder can do piecemeal what no public authority has ever succeeded in doing wholesale, albeit that millions of money have been wasted in silly attempts.
Why should not the householder be encouraged? One method of encouragement would be to allow him to pay for water by meter, if he be so minded, exactly as he pays for gas. Such a measure as this would effectually solve the water difficulty everywhere.
On referring to p.113it will be seen that in 1873 I paid 6l.8s.per annum for water. As there were no fixed baths and washing was not done at home, I reckon the water consumption was not more than seventeen gallons per head per diem.
In 1873 my household averaged nine persons, so that the yearly consumption of water was not more than 9 × 17 × 365 = 55,845 gallons (say 56,000), which, at 6l.8s., means about 2s.3d.per 1,000 gallons.
In 1896 I reckon that my household averaged four and a half persons, and that the yearly consumption of water was 28,000 gallons, which, at 7l.10s.6d., means very nearly 5s.6d.per 1,000. Suppose that this house stood in the country, and that it were possible to adopt dry methods of sanitation, this would reduce the water consumption by about one-third, say to 12 gallons per head, or 19,000gallons a year for the household of 1896. At a shilling per 1,000 gallons, which I believe is a fair price, the water bill would fall to 19s.
At a shilling per 1,000 gallons, twelve gallons per diem, or 4,380 gallons per year, would cost 4s.4d.per head, or a penny per head per week. If in a country place the rain-water were stored the annual cost for water would be still less.
It may be well to add the twelve gallons per diem allows for a daily sponge bath, and that on this quantity of water absolute domestic and personal cleanliness can be maintained. An excess of water is a pure luxury, and it should be remembered that sewage difficulties are largely proportionate to the amount of water which has to be dealt with.
The supply of water by meter would effectually check waste, which no by-laws and regulations can effect; and if the water mains were frozen, the water companies, very properly, would be the chief losers, and the householder would not be called upon to pay for that which he had never been supplied with.
In the matter of water 'enough is as good as a feast,' and it is idle to imagine that the public health will be improved by a reckless extravagance in this or any other direction.
Finally, is it not possible to consider the sanitary well-doer in the matter of sewerage rates? As it is, the householder who perfects and completes the sanitation of his house on his own premises, very possibly pays more than he who throws the whole of the trouble and expense on the public authority.
He who takes trouble in this matter is regarded as a fool by the majority, who say, 'He has got to pay rates; why should he bother.'
That the burden of public authorities and the pollution of rivers would be very much lessened by the recognition of the well-doer, there can be no doubt.
In considering the rating of a house for sewerage works it is clear that every sink,W.C., bath or gully discharging its contents into a public sewer ought to be charged, and such charge should be progressive; thus, if 5s.were paid for one such discharge hole, 7s.6d.should be paid for the second, 10s.for the third, 12s.6d.for the fourth, and so on. In this way a cottage with one kitchen sink only would pay 5s., but a mansion with, say, 10 sinks, baths, andW.C., would pay 8l.2s.6d.Such charges are analogous to the charges made by water companies, which are higher for the better class of house. If this or something like this were done, the fixed charges on the house would produce a considerable sum, which would go far towards paying the municipal bills for scavenging and sewering. The balance would have to be raised by a rate on the buildings themselves, which rate should be in proportion to the cubic contents of the buildings, without reference to their curtilage, because large curtilage tends to improve the public health more than all the clauses of all the sanitary Acts that ever were devised.
The cubic contents should alone be considered in making assessments for rates. If a man spend money in making his house more wholesome without increasing its size, and thereby increases its value, it is clearly not in the interests of the public health that he should be fined by the sanitary authority for so doing. Nevertheless this is done daily.
That a man should pay for so much water as he uses and for no more, and that he should pay the municipality for personal services directly in proportion to those services, seem to be two propositions so simple and so equitable, and so absolutely fundamental for all just dealing, that onecannot be surprised at the trouble which follows the neglect of them.
Great as are the sanitary evils connected with overcrowding, it is probable that the moral and social harm which results from it is infinitely more important; and yet we find that our modern socialistic legislation does everything to encourage and nothing to discourage this greatest of sanitary and social ills.
It is strange that the cubic contents of a building should be a factor which is rigorously excluded from consideration when rating and building regulations are being considered. It seems to the writer to be obvious that it is by far the most important factor, and one which cannot be neglected if our municipal regulations are to have any permanence. The Metropolitan Building Act we have seen puts a premium on large buildings, by abolishing all restrictions as to curtilage, provided the building runs from street to street or from street to 'open space,' and never considers the enormous dangers of these large buildings in relation to epidemic disease and fire.
Every country place would do well to enact that—
In the second paragraph I have chosen 50 for my divisor, because the average width of a street and the average height of the four-storeyed house are not far from 50 feet.
Let us take the case of an ordinary four-storeyed house (with no basement) having an area of 20 × 50 and50 feet high. Then the curtilage would be (20 × 50 × 50) / 50 = 1,000;i.e., the house must have a curtilage exactly equal to the area occupied by the building—a back yard probably, 50 feet deep and 20 feet wide. If in addition to the four storeys there be a basement of 12,500 cubic feet, then an additional 250 square feet of curtilage would be required, and the builder who is tempted to overcrowd would be constantly checked by the price he has to pay for his obligatory curtilage.
The high price of building land is largely due to there being practically no restriction as to the cubic contents permissible on a certain area.
If we take the smaller two-storeyed cottages, having a width of 15 feet, a depth of 25, and a height of 20 feet, then the curtilage would be (15 × 25 × 20) / 50 = 150, which is the minimum of the 'model' by-laws. If the builder put a basement to this cottage of 3,750 cubic feet, he would have to provide additional 75 square feet of curtilage, and thus a check would be put upon underground dwellings and high buildings which obstruct the light and air. On the other hand, there need be no restrictions on the height or cubic contents of any building provided its curtilage be ample.
If it were possible for the first house considered to have a height of 100 feet in addition to its basement, then, the cubic contents being 112,500 feet, the curtilage would have to be 2,250 square feet, and the house and curtilage combined would occupy some 3,250 square feet, or rather less than1⁄13of an acre.
It is probable that a comprehensive rule of this kind would satisfactorily keep builder and site speculator in order, while it placed a minimum of restriction on the originality and fancy of architect and builder.
Builders of houses wholly detached from other houses or boundaries by a distance equal to the height of the house should be allowed to escape altogether from the harassing 'model' by-laws and the tyranny of the surveyor.
I would say finally—
1. That overcrowding is the greatest of all sanitary evils, and far and away the greatest of all moral evils.
2. That whatever increases the cost of the dwelling inevitably increases overcrowding.
3. That overcrowding is facilitated by modern methods of sanitation.
4. That, unless the crowding of houses be prevented, great schemes of sewerage and water-supply will eventually make the health of a district worse instead of better.
5. That 'open spaces' and public gardens do not compensate for the lack of light and air in the dwelling or of curtilage around it.
What one may call municipal luxuries are not permissible if they permanently increase the cost of the dwelling.
If such luxuries be self-supporting they may be permissible, but it is clear to my mind that, as a rule, they should be left to be provided by private munificence or voluntary public subscription. They ought never to be paid for out of the rates.
The avowed policy of many municipalities is to practise a maximum of extravagance, in the belief that such extravagance benefits the poor, and these vicarious philanthropists receive a willing support from those who are directly interested in such schemes.
6. That if great schemes for sewerage, or water supply, or the provision of open spaces, be effected by loans which increase the rates for long terms, and thereby permanentlyincrease the cost of the dwelling, they will inevitably lead to a deterioration in the public health and morals. Some of these schemesfacilitateovercrowding, whileincreased rates, by raising the cost of the dwelling,compelit.
7. Municipal ostentation is wholly indefensible. To build palatial offices costing a million and more of money, and thereby saddle the ratepayers with another loan, is indefensible. To buy a cocked hat for the mayor out of the rates (as did a less ambitious municipality) is equally indefensible, and serves no useful purpose except to raise a laugh.
We have been long accustomed to hear that our chief sanitary necessity in this world is pure water. This would be quite true if we were fish. But it is obvious that the purity of the air we breathe is of far greater importance than the purity of the water we drink, seeing that we must take a draught of air about twenty times a minute, while many of us do not take a draught of raw water from week's end to week's end.
If the huge death-rate of the Strand were due to impure water, we may be sure that there would be no lack of discussion thereupon; but as it is due to overcrowding, and the filthiness of the air consequent upon overcrowding, we hear nothing about it. To make any serious attempt to check overcrowding would interfere with trade, and therefore it is considered silly and futile to discuss such a matter. Any man who supposes that considerations of hygiene will be allowed to interfere with trade, is, I think, deceived. At all events, I have no such belief.
My sole object in discussing these matters is to warn country places against blindly following the lead of London in sanitary matters.
It is quite impossible to define 'organic matter,' or to indicate the line, if there be any, between organic and inorganic.
Organic matter is the material of which living things are made. When a chemist analyses anything which is the product of life, whether vegetable or animal, he often speaks of his incombustible residue or ash as 'inorganic matter,' but this is clearly an arbitrary use of the term, for this incombustible residue has formed an indispensable part of one living thing, and may in due time be incorporated with other living things as something which they cannot do without.
It may well be that everything of which we have knowledge (even including the igneous rocks) has at one time or another formed part of a living organism, and it is certain that a large proportion of the commoner chemical elements may form a part, more or less indispensable, of the bodies and framework of plants or animals.
Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, chlorine, sulphur, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium and calcium seem to be indispensable to almost every living thing. Many more of the elements are constantly found in some organisms,while others, such as lead, mercury, silver, &c., may be temporarily incorporated with living bodies.
We shall deal mainly with those elements which are pre-eminently mobile, which are constantly changing and exchanging, combining and separating, and which are readily combustible. For practical purposes one might, indeed, use the terms 'organic' and 'combustible' to signify the same thing.
With regard to solid matter, the power of readily circulating implies a readiness of combustibility, but it must be remembered that there is no hard line between combustible and incombustible. This is a matter of temperature, and many things which are incombustible here are said to be blazing in the sun.
The combustion of organic matter may take place slowly, or with moderate rapidity, or with explosive violence.
When we burn coal, which is a vegetable product, we find that the carbon and hydrogen escape as carbonic acid and water, accompanied by nitrogen, sulphuric acid, and volatile hydrocarbons. The residue consists mainly of silica and alumina, which are removed from the furnace in the form of clinker and ash. The water ultimately returns to the earth in the form of rain or dew; the carbonic acid is ultimately absorbed by green plants, and, by stimulating the growth of these, helps to furnish us with more combustible material; while the residue is almost a waste product. Thus, in this example we find that the carbon and watery vapour readily 'circulate,' while the residue can only do so after a long interval of time, and is practically lost. The volatile hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid, being poisonous to herbage, are a source of practical loss rather than gain.
Let us take next the case of an animal, which is reallya living furnace, browsing in a field; as it browses we may often see the breath, which is the smoke of this furnace, laden with carbonic acid and water, escaping from its mouth and nostrils, and it is probable that the green leaves of the herbage absorb this carbonic acid almost as soon as it escapes, and, appropriating the carbon, return oxygen to the animal to help its respiration and combustion. The animal as it eats continues to grow and increase in bulk and value, whereas the artificial furnace in which the coal is burnt tends steadily to wear out and decrease in value. As it browses and grows, the droppings of the animal nourish the herbage which here and there, by patches of more vigorous growth and deeper green, afford sure evidence of the value of these waste products.
In this arrangement there is no waste, for both the animal and the herbage, by a process of mutual exchange and the circulation of organic matter, increase in value.
Not only is there no waste, but, strange as it may seem, there is a positive gain, with no loss whatever. The furnace and the fuel are both increased! This increase can only be apparent, and not real, for it is well known that although we may alter the form of matter, we can add nothing to and subtract nothing from the sum total of the world.
One would say that this apparent increase is due to the stimulating effect of the excreta upon the soil, which enables us to draw something extra from that inexhaustible storehouse of plant-food and water, and enables the animal to use these materials, instead of allowing them to drain to the springs, and so find their way to the sea. We know that a far greater proportion of the rainfall percolates through barren soil than through soil bearing crops. If this be so, there is a practical increase of the land at the expense of the water.
Again, we must remember that our knowledge of the sources of the gases of the atmosphere is not complete. It may be that all the oxygen of the air is furnished by the green leaves of plants, and all the carbonic acid by processes of respiration and combustion, but we are by no means sure of this. Of the sources of the atmospheric nitrogen we know nothing. Now it is certain that much of the carbon of the atmosphere is appropriated by the plants, and much of the oxygen by the animals. If among the herbage there be plants of clover, it is now certain that much of the atmospheric nitrogen will be drawn into the soil to nourish these plants and generally to increase their fertility. Whether the return of oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen is, in the long run, equal to the intake we cannot tell.
When, however, we ponder upon the gradual increase of vegetable soil or humus with which the bare rocks have been clothed in the course of ages, it is almost impossible not to come to the conclusion that the humus, and with it the fertility of the soil, has steadily increased at the expense of the sea on the one hand, and, possibly, of the atmosphere on the other. To put the matter in the form of question and in other terms, 'Does theLithosphereincrease at the expense of theAtmosphereand theHydrosphere?' Does the land increase at the expense of sea and air? Be this as it may, it seems certain that by scrupulous return to the soil of all that comes out of it the resources of Nature are made increasingly available for the benefit of man.
When organic matter is mixed with water, a process of putrefaction and fermentation is started, and the organic matter, instead of undergoing oxidation, is reduced, and among the commoner products of this process are ammonia with sulphuretted hydrogen and marsh-gas, which are both combustible. These processes furnish us with other combustiblematters, among the commonest of which are the alcohols, the familiar products of fermentation.
It is interesting to note the tendency of organic matter, when mixed with water, to give rise to explosive and combustible products. Explosions in cesspools and sewers have occurred many times. When wet hay is stored in stack it catches fire. When we stir the mud at the bottom of a pond or river, bubbles of combustible marsh-gas rise to the surface. The coal measures are due to the storing under water of semi-aquatic plants which have been preserved by being silted up, and we know that coal is full of olefiant gas, marsh-gas, sulphuretted hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which are all combustible, and that the carbonaceous residue, charged with volatile and combustible hydrocarbons, forms the chief fuel of the civilised world. Peat is formed in ways analogous to that of coal, and the so-called mineral oils are certainly the products of organic matter which has been silted up.
These subterranean stores of combustibles, all of organic origin, are, as we know, prodigious in quantity. Nobody can predict the time which it will take to exhaust the coal measures of the world, and we know for a fact that the sacred fires of Baku on the Caspian, fed by subterranean reservoirs of naphtha, have been burning for centuries.
When we see the end of a tin of 'preserved meat' bulged, we know that the gas-forming organisms have been at work within, and when the bed of the lower reaches of the Mississippi rises as a small mud mountain, spluttering with carburetted hydrogen, we know that analogous forces have been in operation. It seems, indeed, to be a law of Nature that the ultimate destiny of organic matter is to 'circulate,' and that if it does not do so quietly, as in the ordinary processes of nutrition in plants and animals, itmerely bides its time, and ultimately attains its end with more or less destructive violence.
Nitre (nitrate of potash or nitrate of soda) is an organic product, and sulphur is an essential constituent of all or nearly all organisms. Of the three ingredients of gunpowder, two (charcoal and saltpetre) are, it is certain, of exclusively organic origin, and the third, sulphur, may be so also.
All the common combustibles with which we are familiar are certainly of organic origin, and one is almost forced to the conclusion that in this world life must have preceded combustion. If we are to explain whathas beenby whatis, such a conclusion is irresistible. Are we quite sure that volcanoes, which are seldom far from the sea, are not fed by old deposits of organic matter which has collected in the primeval ocean, and, like the more recent coal measures, have been silted up?
What has been the destiny of the protoplasm of the countless animals and plants which are found in geologic strata? What part have ancient microbes had in the formation and disruption of the successive layers of which this earth is formed? These are questions which force themselves upon the mind, but which I will not attempt to answer. This biological view of the cosmogony which subjects the world, equally with all that is upon it, to the laws of development, evolution, and decay, does not, I believe, present so many difficulties as might at first sight appear.
Omne vivum ex vivois a law of Nature, and all organic bodies spring from organic antecedents. Organic matter is our capital in this world, and the more frequently we can turn it over, and the more quickly and efficiently we can make it circulate, the more frequent will be ourdividends. If we burn organic matter we may get a good dividend of energy, but nothing further is to be expected. The construction of the furnace involves an outlay of capital, which steadily diminishes as the furnace wears out by frequent use. If we burn organic matter merely to be rid of it, we spend our money for the sole purpose of dissipating our capital. The function of fire is to destroy and sterilise.
If we mix organic matter with large quantities of water, we have to encounter all the evils and annoyance of putrefaction, and if, when so mixed, we send it to the sea, we have no material gain of any kind. We spend our money for the purpose of dissipating our capital.
We may place the water containing the organic matter upon the land, and in tropical countries this is done, with excellent effect, for the production of rice, a semi-aquatic plant, which, according to Professor Georgeson, Professor of Agriculture in the Imperial University of Tokio, is said to prefer its nitrogen in the form of ammonia. The same authority states that nitrification does not take place under water, and careful experiments carried out at Tokio show that sulphate of ammonia is a much better manure for irrigated rice than nitrate of soda.
In our damp climate sewage farming has proved a dismal failure, and the difficulties seem to increase with the quantity of water which has to be dealt with. Excess of water drowns the humus, and nitrification cannot go on in a soil the pores of which are closed by excess of moisture.
The living earth, teeming with aërobic microbes, must be allowed to breathe. It needs for this purpose a certain amount (about 30 per cent.) of moisture; but it stands drowning no better than a man does, and if it be drowned, agricultural failure is inevitable.
If we carefully return to the upper layers of the humus, in which air and microbes exist in plenty, the residue ofeverything which we extract from it, we inevitably increase the thickness of the humus and its fertility. Our capital increases, and our dividends increase and recur with a frequency which depends upon the climate.
With thrifty and high cultivation it may, indeed, prove profitable to compensate defects of climate by the use of glass and artificial heat.
The part played in the economy of Nature by fungi and bacteria—the new learning of the last half-century—is an addition to human knowledge which is destined to revolutionise our views of many natural phenomena. It has already exercised enormous propulsive power on human thought, and has stimulated our imagination scarcely less than when, to use the words of Froude, 'the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe.'
This knowledge has provided us with a new world, peopled with organisms in numbers which, like the distances of the astronomers and the periods of the geologists, are really unthinkable by the human mind. Their variety also, both in form and function, is, for practical purposes, infinite.
When, with the help of the many inventions of the optician and the dyer, we catch a glimpse of things which a few years back were 'undreamt of in our philosophy,' and when we reflect that these organisms are certainly the offspring of 'necessity,' and are probably mere indications of infinities beyond, we cannot be too thankful for the flood of light which these discoveries have shed upon the enormity of human ignorance.
The lower animals and the lower vegetable organisms (fungi and bacteria) co-operate in a remarkable way in the circulation of organic matter.
In the autumn the gardener, with a view to what iscalled 'leaf mould,' sweeps the dead leaves into a heap, where they are exposed to air and rain. This heap when thus treated gets hot, and last autumn I found that the temperature of such a heap had risen in the course of a week or so to 104° F., and remained at a temperature considerably above that of the surrounding air during the whole winter. On turning it over after a month or so one found in it a large number of earthworms and endless fungoid growths visible to the naked eye, and one felt sure that it was swarming with countless millions of bacteria, invisible except to the highest powers of the microscope. In the beginning of March this heap, much reduced in size, was spread loosely over a patch of ground which was previously dug. If one examined that ground to-day one would scarcely recognise the structure of leaves, and in a few weeks more it will have become nothing but ordinary garden mould, and anything planted in it will grow with vigour. This is a familiar everyday fact.
We know also that noisome filth spread over a field by the farmer in the autumn or winter loses its offensiveness in a few days, and by the spring neither our eyes nor noses give us any clue to the cause of the fertility of the field which is covered with ordinary 'mould.' This process of 'humification' is largely due to earthworms and other earth dwellers, which pass the earth repeatedly through their bodies, and in doing so reduce it to a very fine powder. I have examined worm castings picked off a lawn, and which, after being slowly dried, have been gently sifted through muslin. Those who have never examined a worm casting in this way will be interested to know of what an impalpable dust the greater part is composed, and will also note the considerable size of the pieces of flint and grit which the animal has used in its living mill, and which have been separated by the muslin sieve.
These castings are full of microbes, and those who will take the trouble to scatter the smallest conceivable pinch of this impalpable dust upon a sterilised potato, after the manner and with all the precautions familiar to bacteriologists, will obtain an abundant and varied growth of bacteria and moulds, which will completely baffle their powers of enumeration and discrimination.
The greatest hindrance in the bacterial examination of the soil is thisembarras de richesses, which makes the isolation of different species a matter of extreme difficulty.
The bacteria exist in the soil in countless millions, but it must be remembered that they get fewer as we go deeper. The first few inches of the soil are, in the matter of bacterial richness, worth all the rest, and at a depth of five or six feet they appear to be almost non-existent. The practical lesson which we have to lay to heart in applying this knowledge is that the upper layers of the soil are the potent layers in bringing about the circulation of organic matters, and that if we wish to hasten this process we must be careful to place our organic refuse near the surface, and not to bury it deeply, a process by which the circulation is inevitably delayed or practically prevented. If we bury it deeply we not only get no good, but we may get harm by poisoning our wells and springs.
It is the same with organic liquids. If these be poured on the surface, the 'living earth' (i.e.the humus stuffed with animal and microbial life) purges them of their organic matter, and transmits a relatively pure liquid to the deeper layers. If they be taken to the barren subsoil direct, as in underground sewers and cesspools, they escape the purifying action of air and aërobic organisms, and inevitably poison the water. Filthy liquids accumulating in cesspools and leakingunder pressureto our wells have cost us health and money incalculable.
Liquids poured upon the surface cannot, owing to the crumby nature of the humus, exert any appreciable hydraulic pressure. This is a fact of huge importance in the practical management of organic refuse.
All effete organic matter instantly becomes the prey of animals and plants. The dead body of an animal teems with life—Le roi est mort, vive le roi. M. Mégnin, a skilled entomologist and a member of the French Academy of Medicine, has made a study, which is full of gruesome interest, of the living machinery which makes away with the bodies of animals not buried but exposed to the air and protected from beasts of prey.
M. Mégnin shows that the destruction of the animal is accomplished in no haphazard fashion, but that successive squadrons of insects are attracted by the successive stages of putrefaction.
The first squadron which arrives, sometimes before death and always before putrefaction, consists entirely of dipterous insects, house-flies and their relative, the blow-fly.
The next squadron are also diptera, and are said to be attracted by the commencing odour of decomposition. These squadrons use the carcase as a procreant cradle, and thus ensure the nourishment of the larvæ so soon as they are hatched. Amongst these flesh-seeking flies there are said to be specialists which prefer the flesh of particular animals.
The third squadron is attracted when the fat begins to undergo an acid fermentation. These consist of coleoptera and lepidoptera, beetles and butterflies, and among them isDermestes Lardarius, the Bacon Beetle.
When the fats become cheesy the diptera reappear, and among them isPyophila Casei, the fly which breeds jumpers in cheese, which is accompanied by a beetle, whose larvæ are connoisseurs in rancidity.
When the carcase becomes ammoniacal, black, and slimy, it is visited by a fifth squadron of flies and beetles.
And these are succeeded by the sixth squadron, consisting of acari or mites, whose function it is to dry up the moisture and reduce the carcase to a mummy-like condition.
The dried carcase proves attractive to the seventh squadron, consisting of beetles and moths, some of which are the familiar pests of the housewife, the furrier, and the keepers of museums. These animals gnaw the softer parts, such as ligaments, and leave nothing but a fine powder behind them, which is in fact their dung.
The last and eighth squadron consists solely of beetles, which clean up the débris, in the shape of dung, shells, pupa cases, &c., of the seven squadrons which have preceded them.
M. Mégnin, being an entomologist and not a bacteriologist, deals exclusively with the insects concerned in making away with a carcase, but it is evident that bacteria work hand in hand with them.
There are many other instances which may be quoted of the co-operation of fungi with other organisms, and it is only of late years that we have appreciated the fact ofsymbiosis, or the living together of two organisms for the mutual benefit of each. This fact was first pointed out in so-called lichens, which are now shown to be complex bodies consisting of a fungus and an alga, living in symbiotic community for the mutual benefit of each.
It was next shown that the papilionaceous leguminosæ are unable to flourish without certain bacterial nodules which grow upon their roots, and by the instrumentality of which they can appropriate the nitrogen of the air, and thus the fact, familiar for centuries, that the leguminosæ leave the ground in a state of great fertility, while they are singularly independent of nitrogenous manures, has been explained.
But if the plants themselves are independent of dung, it is not so, apparently, with the symbiotic nodules, which seem to flourish far more vigorously in rich garden ground than they do in comparatively poor farm land. Thus Sir John Lawes has grown clover in a rich old garden for forty-two years, and has had luxuriant crops every year.
According to my own observation on the scarlet runner bean these nodules are more plentiful upon the roots which grow superficially than upon those which run deeply.
Symbiosis is observable in many plants other than the leguminosæ, and it is certain that many of our big forest trees depend for their nourishment upon fungi which grow upon their roots.
All animals appear to be symbiotic, for we all carry about millions of microbes, which must fairly be regarded as junior partners in our economy, and which we cannot do without. The microbe which has been chiefly studied—theBacterium Coli commune—appears to be essential for certain digestive processes which go on in the intestines while we live; and when we die, this microbe is active in starting the dead body upon that cycle of events which is one form of the 'Circulation of Organic Matter.'
Now it is certain that the dung of all animals swarms with bacteria and allied organisms when it leaves the intestines, and it seems highly probable that excrement carries with it the biological machinery which is necessary for its dissolution and ultimate humification.
My friend, Mr. George Murray, F.R.S., the keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum, whose learning in fungology is well known, has kindly furnished me with an elaborate list of 139 genera of fungi which flourish on excrement.
Of these 139 genera, Mr. Murray has tabulated no lessthan 628 species which are known to flourish on excrement.
Of the 628 species, 226 have been found on the dung of more than one genus of animals, but no less than 402 species of fungi are peculiar to the excrement of only one genus of animals.
Of these 402 species of fungi, 91 are peculiar to the dung of the ox; 78 to the horse; 68 to the hare and rabbit; 30 to the dog; 25 to the sheep; 28 to birds; 21 to man; 16 to the mouse; 9 to the deer; 7 to the pig; 7 to the wolf; and 22 to other animals.
This search for fungi in excrement is necessarily incomplete. In Mr. Murray's list it is evident that the greatest number of species has been found in the dung of animals which are domesticated and common, and which offer facilities to the fungologist. The numbers are startling, but when we consider that the dung of every living thing which crawls or burrows, or swims or flies, has properties which are peculiar to it, and which fit it to become the nidus of some peculiar fungoid or bacterial growth, the part played by fungi in the distribution and circulation of organic matter cannot be over-estimated.
The facts which have been recounted, and which seem to show that fungi and bacteria are necessary for the growth and development of even the highest plants and animals, and that fungi and animals are equally necessary for the dissolution of organic matter, point to the conclusion that the correlation of the biological forces in this world is no less exact than the correlation of the physical forces. The uniform composition of the atmosphere, except under special and local conditions, is a fact which tends in the same direction.
While it is impossible to over-estimate the debt whichagriculture owes to chemistry, we have, nevertheless, learnt from the bacteriologist that there are biological problems underlying the question of fertility, and that a mere chemical estimation of the constituents of organic manure is insufficient, by itself, to fix its manurial value. It is by the agency of bacteria that organic matter is changed into nitrates and other soluble salts, which are absorbed by the roots of plants and serve to nourish them. This change only takes place provided the temperature and moisture are suitable and the ground be properly tilled. Drought and frost arrest the change, and excess of moisture, by closing the pores of the soil, does the same thing.
Organic manures are economical in the long run, because if the weather is adverse they bide their time until the advent of 'fine growing weather.' If one season prove unfavourable, a large amount of the organic matter remains in the soil to nourish the next crop. This is not the case when soluble chemical manures are used.
That it is necessary to put dung upon the ground if we are to maintain the fertility of the soil has been the experience of all peoples in every age.