The Garden History Blog

Vacuum pump for removing night soil from cesspools. From ‘The Practical Magazine’, London, 1874

We generally  think of the Victorians as very proper and respectable,  when even the  the legs of the piano were covered up,  and no risqué or unpleasant subjects were ever raised in polite society. So  it was a bit of a shock to discover that Shirley Hibberd the great Victorian garden writer wrote passionately about, of all things, sewage.  Indeed worse than that – he was vociferous in complaining about the waste of  human sewage.

Shirley Hibberd, carte -de-visite, Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society

http://permaculturenews.org/2013/03/01/recycling-animal-and-human-dung-is-the-key-to-sustainable-farming/

He argued in his book Profitable Gardening (1884), that it should be used as garden fertiliser,  as it was in many parts of the world.   So why wasn’t it?  What were the alternatives being used?  There was certainly no luxury of prepackaged multipurpose potting compost, and the fertilisers that existed were not clean granules in a neatly sealed plastic bag or colourful cardboard box with a handy measuring device, but usually had to be obtained as raw ingredients and mixed as needed. More on that in the next post but today, as the perfect reading for a steaming hot summer’s day,  read on to discover, [and I hope this doesn’t make you too squeamish] a history of the use of sewage in our gardens!   Continue reading →