When did the Chinese begin using night soil as fertilizer?
score:6
The Old Chinese character for fertilisers is the same as the word as fecal matter. Thus, we cannot assume that the fertilisers mentioned in Spring and Autumn texts were actually excrement. It is known that at least in some cases, they were referring to (presumably compost) weed or grass.
The earliest explicit reference of using human waste as fertilisers seems to date to the late Western Han dynasty. The Book of Fan Sheng-Chih, which was written around the reign of Emperor Cheng discussed various methods of raising agricultural productivity extensively, including, of course, applying fertilisers.
While the bulk of the original text has been lost, part of the surviving 3,500 characters mentions that:
《漢·氾勝之書》 種麻，豫調和田。二月下旬，三月上旬，傍雨種之。麻生布葉，鋤之。率九尺一樹。樹高一尺，以蠶矢糞之，樹三升；無蠶矢，以溷中熟糞糞之亦善，樹一升。
Growing hemp ... One foot tall, fertilise with silkworm excrement, three cupsper tree; if lacking silkworms excrement, then fertilising with feces from toilets is good too ...
It is in all likelihood impossible to know precisely when a practice like this began. Nonetheless, based on the above, we can probably date the start of wider adoption to around the Qin or Han dynasties and possibly late Warring States.
More post
- 📝 What information would be contained on an Ottoman Tapu deed in the 1830s?
- 📝 Date of birth and the date of death of Marguerite-Claudine Legendre?
- 📝 How do Dambadiva kings fit in Indian history?
- 📝 Did the 'founding fathers' of the United States see Oliver Cromwell as a role model?
- 📝 Why were the people from the Southeast in the US so different from the rest of the US?
- 📝 What was the Catholic Church's opinion of Diệm's South Vietnam?
- 📝 Did the treaty of Versailles require closure of German cadet schools?
- 📝 What was the image of Jhwh before it was almost erased from history?
- 📝 What similarities exist between the Kalapas theory from Subcontinental Indians, and the modern theory of atom?
- 📝 Where can I find information about Spanish soldiers in Porto? 1596-1598
- 📝 Who really fired on Ft. Sumter - the South or Local Charleston, SC militia?
- 📝 Are there factors which caused the printing revolution to begin in Europe in 1450 and not some other place some other time?
- 📝 Which is the oldest, still current, government debt?
- 📝 Where did poor London women give birth in the latter half of the 19th century?
- 📝 What is the meaning of the elements of this emblem?
- 📝 During the 1850’s and 60’s, was the free North (and its cause in the U.S. Civil War) considered more virtuous than the slave-holding South?
- 📝 Did the Indo-Greeks play a crucial role in promoting Buddhism?
- 📝 Does any library hold the archives of the Russian-American Company?
- 📝 What is modern criticism of Nazism?
- 📝 WWII: Did the entire war depend on breaking the ENIGMA cipher?
- 📝 Was the death toll in the atomic bombing of Japanese territory greater than was expected by the US?
- 📝 Visit of Greek philosophers to Rome in 155 BCE
- 📝 Rosie the Riveter and "We Can Do It!"
- 📝 When did western medical certification start?
- 📝 What is the name of this ancient means of identification based on broken objects?
- 📝 In Georgian England, what was a water-party?
- 📝 Why didn't Aboriginal Australians invent agriculture?
- 📝 Is there any documentation regarding the use of war elephants in battles?
- 📝 What type of ferry boats were used in England in the early 19th century?
- 📝 Why did the Japanese Navy convert Kaga to an Aircraft Carrier?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 When did the Chinese begin using night soil as fertilizer?
- 📝 When did the Romans begin using the sword, as opposed to the axe, for decapitation?
- 📝 When did the cats versus dogs rivalry begin in the US?
- 📝 When did we begin using metal mesh platforms?
- 📝 When the Chinese were driven out of modern Vietnam in AD 938, did an Vietnamese ethnic identity already exist?
- 📝 When did abolition of property qualifications for voting begin in the USA?
- 📝 When did the term "mirror" begin to be used in place of "looking glass?"
- 📝 When did American elections begin to use the ballot?
- 📝 When did the first electronic money transfer / digital transaction happen using computers?
- 📝 When did the Catholic Inquisition stop using torture?
- 📝 When did the Roman consular year begin during the Republic and Empire?
- 📝 When did the US start using sniper + spotter teams, rather than solo snipers?
- 📝 When did the popular idea begin that the 21st century would commence on 1st January 2000?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 When did people decide that all caps means the writer is shouting?
- 📝 When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Did it take 3 minutes to reload a musket when the second amendment to the US constitution was ratified?
- 📝 When did humans develop the ability to sail any direction regardless of wind direction?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 When did the Romans finally acknowledge that they were living in an empire?
- 📝 When did the Greeks stop calling themselves "Roman"?
- 📝 When and how did people begin to consider slavery immoral?
- 📝 Where did Hitler get the funds to invest in economic development programs such as the autobahn when the German economy was in a depression?
- 📝 When did "&" stop being taught alongside the alphabet?
- 📝 When did the Roman Empire fall according to contemporaries?
- 📝 When did the practice of formally "declaring war" cease and why?
- 📝 When did the U.S. Army start saying "oh-six-hundred" for "6 AM"?