In Darkest England and The Way Out [77]
from door to door every day of the year. Much of this food would be suitable for human consumption, its waste being next door to sinful. Imagine, for instance, the quantities of soup which might be made from boiling the good fresh meaty bones of the great City! Think of the dainty dishes which a French cook would be able to serve up from the scraps and odds and ends of a single West End kitchen. Good cookery is not an extravagance but an economy, and many a tasty dish is made by our Continental friends out of materials which would be discarded indignantly by the poorest tramp in Whitechapel.
But after all that is done there will remain a mass of food which cannot be eaten by man, but can be converted into food for him by the simple process of passing it through another digestive apparatus. The old bread of London, the soiled, stale crusts can be used in foddering the horses which are employed in collecting the waste. It will help to feed the rabbits, whose hutches will be close by every cottage on the estate, and the hens of the Colony will flourish on the crumbs which fall from the table of Dives. But after the horses and the rabbits and poultry have been served, there will remain a residuum of eatable matter, which can only be profitably disposed of to the voracious and necessary pig. I foresee the rise of a piggery in connection with the new Social Scheme, which will dwarf into insignificance all that exist in Great Britain and Ireland. We have the advantage of the experience of the whole world as to the choice of breeds, the construction of sties, and the rearing of stock. We shall have the major part of our food practically for the cost of collection, and be able to adopt all the latest methods of Chicago for the killing, curing, and disposing of our pork, ham, and bacon.
There are few animals more useful than the pig. He will eat anything, live anywhere, and almost every particle of him, from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, is capable of being converted into a saleable commodity. Your pig also is a great producer of manure, and agriculture is after all largely a matter of manure. Treat the land well and it will treat you well. With our piggery in connection with our Farm Colony there would be no lack of manure.
With the piggery there would grow up a great bacon factory for curing, and that again would make more work. Then as for sausages they would be produced literally by the mile, and all made of the best meat instead of being manufactured out of the very objectionable ingredients too often stowed away in that poor man's favourite ration.
Food, however, is only one of the materials which will be collected by the Household Salvage Brigade. The barges which float down the river with the tide, laden to the brim with the cast-off waste of half a million homes, will bring down an enormous quantity of material which cannot be eaten even by pigs. There will be, for instance, the old bones. At present it pays speculators to go to the prairies of America and gather up the bleached bones of the dead buffaloes, in order to make manure. It pays manufacturers to bring bones from the end of the earth in order to grind them up for use on our fields. But the waste bones of London; who collects them? I see, as in a vision, barge loads upon barge loads of bones floating down the Thames to the great Bone Factory. Some of the best will yield material for knife handles and buttons, and the numberless articles which will afford ample opportunity in the long winter evenings for the acquisition of skill on the part of our Colonist carvers, while the rest will go straight to the Manure Mill. There will be a constant demand for manure on the part of our ever-increasing nests of new Colonies and our Co-operative Farm, every man in which will be educated in the great doctrine that there is no good agriculture without liberal manuring. And here will be an unfailing source of supply.
Among the material which comes down will be an immense quantity of greasy matter, bits of fat, suet and lard, tallow,
But after all that is done there will remain a mass of food which cannot be eaten by man, but can be converted into food for him by the simple process of passing it through another digestive apparatus. The old bread of London, the soiled, stale crusts can be used in foddering the horses which are employed in collecting the waste. It will help to feed the rabbits, whose hutches will be close by every cottage on the estate, and the hens of the Colony will flourish on the crumbs which fall from the table of Dives. But after the horses and the rabbits and poultry have been served, there will remain a residuum of eatable matter, which can only be profitably disposed of to the voracious and necessary pig. I foresee the rise of a piggery in connection with the new Social Scheme, which will dwarf into insignificance all that exist in Great Britain and Ireland. We have the advantage of the experience of the whole world as to the choice of breeds, the construction of sties, and the rearing of stock. We shall have the major part of our food practically for the cost of collection, and be able to adopt all the latest methods of Chicago for the killing, curing, and disposing of our pork, ham, and bacon.
There are few animals more useful than the pig. He will eat anything, live anywhere, and almost every particle of him, from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, is capable of being converted into a saleable commodity. Your pig also is a great producer of manure, and agriculture is after all largely a matter of manure. Treat the land well and it will treat you well. With our piggery in connection with our Farm Colony there would be no lack of manure.
With the piggery there would grow up a great bacon factory for curing, and that again would make more work. Then as for sausages they would be produced literally by the mile, and all made of the best meat instead of being manufactured out of the very objectionable ingredients too often stowed away in that poor man's favourite ration.
Food, however, is only one of the materials which will be collected by the Household Salvage Brigade. The barges which float down the river with the tide, laden to the brim with the cast-off waste of half a million homes, will bring down an enormous quantity of material which cannot be eaten even by pigs. There will be, for instance, the old bones. At present it pays speculators to go to the prairies of America and gather up the bleached bones of the dead buffaloes, in order to make manure. It pays manufacturers to bring bones from the end of the earth in order to grind them up for use on our fields. But the waste bones of London; who collects them? I see, as in a vision, barge loads upon barge loads of bones floating down the Thames to the great Bone Factory. Some of the best will yield material for knife handles and buttons, and the numberless articles which will afford ample opportunity in the long winter evenings for the acquisition of skill on the part of our Colonist carvers, while the rest will go straight to the Manure Mill. There will be a constant demand for manure on the part of our ever-increasing nests of new Colonies and our Co-operative Farm, every man in which will be educated in the great doctrine that there is no good agriculture without liberal manuring. And here will be an unfailing source of supply.
Among the material which comes down will be an immense quantity of greasy matter, bits of fat, suet and lard, tallow,