Toliet use in outer space

Here's another story on the CNN website about bodily functions in outer space.

"The international space station's lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go. So NASA may order an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week.

"Until then, the three-man crew will have to make do with a jury-rigged system when they need to urinate.

"While one of the crew was using the Russian-made toilet last week, the toilet motor fan stopped working, according to NASA... Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally."

Human wastes fertilize the soil

Today an online search went awry. Instead of information about Michigan in the late 1880s the database located a journal article titled "From city to farm: Urban wastes and the American farmer" in Agricultural History, Vol. 49, No. 4, (Oct., 1975).

"City wastes were used on the land in America as early as the mid eighteenth century, if not before. One historian notes that in 1765 much of the 'dung and ordure of Manhatten' [sic] was used to fertilize farms along the East River, while another observes that farmers utilized the night soil of Boston as well as New York in the 1830s and 1840s.

In a footnote I saw:

"Several sources mention the utilization of 'poudrette,' a commercial fertilizer manufactured from urban sewage and night soil, before the Civil War."