'Honey wagons' of the past: 'night soil' and its disease sting

The unidentified soldier wrote on the back of the picture: “People save the stuff from the soil cans (toilets) and spread it on the cabbage for fertilizer. This is called 'Honey' ― it is carried in 'Honey buckets' or 'Honey wagons' and is absolutely the worst smelling stuff in the world.” Circa July 1952.

By Robert Neff

Somewhere in Korea in 1952, an American soldier passed a small caravan of wagons laden with large barrels of foul-smelling sludge. While he was repulsed by the smell, he was equally attracted by the image and quickly snapped a picture. He had encountered a “honey wagon” and its precious cargo of “night soil.”

Night soil and honey wagons were often mentioned by early Western visitors to Joseon Korea. In the mid-1890s, Isabella Bird Bishop ― a fiery English woman noted for her travel accounts in the Far East ― encountered on the Han River “ferry boats full of pack bulls bearing the night soil of the city to the country...”

She apparently gave them little attention and saved her scathing comments for the river port Mapo and its male inhabitants who “swayed and loafed and did nothing in particular.”

The term “night soil” seems rather strange as it was generally transported during the day.

In 1905, Homer Hulbert wrote: “The night soil is carried away by men who make it a regular business but unfortunately it is done in the daytime and not at night. It stands to reason that such a state of affairs must be very unpleasant and to some extent injurious.”

As one observer noted, the night soil was never disinfected and was spread on fields as fertilizer, which led to diseases, especially cholera. Unscrupulous ice vendors sold ice taken from frozen rice paddies and vegetables ― especially unpeeled cucumbers ― were often eaten raw and unwashed.

In the mid-1880s, Dr. Horace Allen printed fliers warning the small number of Westerners residing in Seoul to avoid eating raw vegetables and melons due to the widespread use of night soil. It was partially out of this concern that by the 1890s many of the Western residences in Seoul had gardens to supply their vegetable needs.

Others capitalized on this fear. In 1900, the young boys at the Home for Destitute Children, an orphanage established by Miss Jean Perry, raised vegetables and sold them to the legations and Westerners residing in the Jeongdong area ― as their vegetables (and perhaps feces) could be trusted to be disease-free.

The need for trust in regard to feces is further illustrated by Mary Taylor's anecdote. In 1917, she visited the American-owned Oriental Consolidated Mining Company in northern Korea and was invited to dine with the general manager and his wife.

She was served a “splendid lunch of venison and all manner of home-grown vegetables” but was somewhat apprehensive to partake in the vegetables as it was common knowledge not to eat “vegetables bought in the Korean markets, on account of the use of human fertilizer.”

Sensing Taylor's uneasiness, her hostess awkwardly tried to reassure her by proudly declaring, “Don't be afraid to eat, my dear, these are grown in our own manure.”