Night soil

Night soil is a very special name for poop that people used to collect and use as fertilizer for their crops. In the old days, there were no fancy flush toilets like we have today. Instead, people had to go to the bathroom in a special room called an outhouse. When they were done, they would scoop up their poop with a special bucket and empty it into a big pit outside.

Now, you might be wondering why anyone would want to use poop to help their plants grow. Well, it turns out that poop is actually a really great fertilizer! It has lots of important nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that plants need to grow healthy and strong. So, farmers would collect the poop from the outhouse pit and spread it over their fields to help their crops grow better.

Of course, these days we have much better ways of dealing with our poop. We flush it down the toilet, and it gets sent to special treatment plants where it's cleaned and turned into harmless stuff that can even generate electricity! But, in the old days, night soil was an important part of farming, and many people relied on it to help their crops grow.