Introducing the Stercorary

The Repository for Dung at Mount Vernon

Photo Credit: Mount Vernon Ladies Association

Folklore is a critical component to the study of any subject of literature, and farm literature is not excluded.  Even in my own minimal efforts at gardening, I have heard a range of informal oral traditions.  Suggestions have included turning ladybugs loose in my garden for good luck, planting corn on the east side of the garden for better pollination, and sprinkling Borax laundry booster around squash plants to ward off damaging insects. 

Finding a piece of folklore specific to composting was more challenging than I expected.  I found a fantastic book written in 1907 by S.W. Fletcher titled “Soils: How to Handle and Improve Them,” but this nearly 450-page informative text, though interesting, is academic in nature, not folkloric.  I watched a persuasive video titled “The Compost Story” at www.kisstheground.com that explains the science of composting and justifies the need for mass participation.  While entertaining and convincing, this piece did not seem to meet any criteria for folklore. 

In an attempt to meet folklore criteria such as oral, informal, and variable, I even called my grandmothers to ask them if they or their parents had any experience with composting when commercial fertilizers were less common.  My Grandma Holyoak explained that they never had need for compost growing up because they used the manure from their cattle to fertilize their fields.  She said that she has occasionally buried potato peels, or mixed grass clippings into her garden spot, but that was it.  It made me giggle to think of my grandma saving and burying only potato peels in her garden spot, but nothing further. 

My search led me to a great article titled “The Green, Brown, and Beautiful Story of Compost” by Aaron Sidder for National Geographic detailing the benefits of composting and tracing some of its historic roots.  This article turned me to a web entry titled “Composting” at www.mountvernon.org.  In describing our nation’s first president, this entry begins by explaining that “Washington spent most of his adult life searching for a fertilizer that would invigorate his lack luster soil at Mount Vernon” (Composting).  Although simply written, this account of the composting done by George Washington at Mount Vernon is interesting and even taught me a new word, which is always cool.  Washington had a stercorary, or dung repository, strategically located near his stables at Mount Vernon where he reportedly instructed all to “rake, and scrape up all the trash, of every sort and kind about the houses…and throw it…into the stercorary” (Sidder).  Since it was built in 1787, it is likely that Washington’s stercorary was the first building in America devoted to composting (Composting). 

Reading this piece of historical interest about composting has deepened my understanding of the topic through an increased understanding that successful composting is the result of a lot of trial and error.  Even George Washington experimented with a variety of different methods and ingredients.  According to the Mount Vernon website, his stercorary was constructed with perches for birds so that their waste would be added to the compost mixture.

   

As the composting experiment moves forward, I’m convinced the folklore associated with the topic will continue to expand as well.

“Composting.” George Washington’s Mount Vernon.  www.mountvernon.org/the-estate-gardens/historic-trades/composting/ Accessed 9 June 2018.

Fletcher, S.W. “Soils: How to Handle and Improve Them” The Farm Library. Doubleday, Page & Co, New York, 1907.

Holyoak, Virginia. Personal Interview. 9 June 2018.

Sidder, Aaron. The Green, Brown, and Beautiful Story of Compost.” National Geographic Magazine, 9 September 2016. www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2016/09/compost--a-history-in-green-and-brown/ Accessed 9 June 2018.

"The Compost Story." Kiss The Ground. www.kisstheground.com. Accessed 9 June 2018.