Why on earth do we find so many buttons ?

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

I have had this conversation countless times over the last couple of years with various members of Detecting Wales and a couple of F.L.O's.

Why on earth do we find so many buttons ?  Ok sometimes we're lucky to find a button, but I dont mean those fields.I mean the fields where you know you're going to find a lot of buttons. Most detectorists have their very own 'Button Moon'.

The three common theories I've heard are.

1- Normal lossage from workmen on the fields.

All fields were worked and all must have some amount of buttons in them, but not the amount we find on our button fields.- Again if one of your farms have a button field you'll know what I'm on about.


2- Rags , old clothes were shredded and ploughed into the field to retain moisture. (This is a popular F.L.O theory as well)

I dont know about you but my Granny had a button tin which she kept all her buttons off old clothes to reuse - Moreso with the older metal buttons as these would last and last. This was from the 20's through to the 80's. People just did not throw away anything they could reuse

3- Night Soil (Human excrement) was spread on fields in Georgian times. This was taken from peoples cess pits as there was no sewerage system. Buttons and the like would fall into the toilets and find their way into the Cess pits.

So which theory do you think is most likely to be correct, Or do you indded have a theory of your own ?


Heres an article about Londons Nightsoil men - Enjoy.



Human Waste Removal in Georgian London

Night-soil men carted human, animal, and household waste in buckets from the back yards of houses, and private and public cesspits, and transported the waste to the country. The men were allowed to work only between midnight and five a.m. They arrived with a cart, and worked in teams of four, consisting of a holeman, ropeman, and two tubmen. The team of men announced their arrival by ringing a bell, which they hand carried. If the privy was located in a narrow back yard, and if the only access the night men had was through the front door, they would have to carry out their work through the house. The men carried their lanters and equipment to the entrance of the cesspit. The holeman would descend first. He would go down a few feet into the pit, loosen the sludge, and shovel it into a tub. A ropeman would then raise the filled tub, and the two tubemen would empty the tubs into a waiting cart. As he emptied the cesspit, the holeman would descend further down the hole. Pulling up the tubs, the ropeman would be careful not to spill too much waste. As the work progressed, the tubmen could easily carry over 100 pounds of sewage. The men would lower a ladder down the increasingly empty cesspit, and the process would be repeated, with the holeman descending the ladder again and again, the ropeman pulling up the waste, and tubmen carrying out the sludge, until the waste was removed.

The Wages Made by Night-soil Men

Night-soil men were compensated for their hard and unappealing labor by earning a wage that was two to three times the salary of a skilled man. As the city grew and expanded, and the distance that night-soil men had to travel to remove the wastes increased, their prices soared. Soon, the night-soil men were charging a shilling per cesspool. This amount often represented a poor working man's, woman's or child's wage for a week. With the cost of night-soil removal becoming prohibitive, human waste began to accumulate in the poorer sections of London.

Recycling Human Waste in Georgian London

As mentioned before, the night-soil men would cart the waste to farms outside the city. Demand for this waste was high by farmers, who spread the manure over their farmland. Night-soil was graded for its quality, and farmers would pay an average of 12 ½ p for the manure. Purchase of human excrement ceased in 1870 when guano, or bird droppings, was imported cheaply from South America.

[Meatslicer]

After wars or capture of foreign prisoners from various armies, the uniforms which weren't going to be used again were shredded and used as landfill on farms. They were made of densely woven fibres which could not be cheaply recycled.

Particularly after the napoleonic and african wars when huge numbers of uniforms were changed to be less conspicuous on the battlefield. Brightly coloured uniforms with shiny buttons presented an easier target for enemies. More subdued colours and plainer buttons were cheaper and easier to produce. When the uniforms were shredded it just wasn't worth the expense of taking the buttons off.

I find a large proportion of small, four-holed "dish" type buttons which seem to have been used by workers on farms around the start of the industrial revolution, as migrant workers moved around the country looking for work as machines took over the work they and their horses used to do. This was hard work and led to large numbers of buttons being lost as they lifted and heaved crops wearing poor quality clothing.

Apart from that, our machines are designed and optimized to respond to small round metal targets. We look for things which our machines will respond most to. Unfortunately the size and shape of a button is annoyingly like a coin.

The modern equivalent is "green landfill" which is chewed up ikea/chipboard furniture with the hinges, fitments and screws still inside them. B*****ds!

Nuff said.

Eric

[nobby]

AH THATS WHY I KEEP FINDING WARDROBE CAMLOCKS

[Chef Geoff]

I'm never quite sure why Georgian is always mentioned when speaking about night soil, as far as I'm aware people have always needed to use the toilet so I would imagine some industrious person has always been on hand to deal with the "problem" and make money from it. I think only a tiny percentage of night soil came from cesspits' as most people would of had a bucket below a shelf with a hole and a trap door in the back of the lavy through which the bucket was removed and replaced. This was still the main sewage system in many areas right up to the 1920's.

The use of clothing for mulch doesn't hold up to close scrutiny, the pure act of shredding cloth is not a simple one. By hand it would not be cost effective and by machine it would be no cheaper, also the power you need to rip or cut cloth would also damage the buttons beyond recognition let alone the damage it may do to any machine.
Also the cloth would have to be cut into tiny pieces or during ploughing the cloth would back up around the share and it would all end up at the end of the field.


Eric your small four holed dish buttons are I'm afraid just trouser fly buttons  , these were still being used on army trousers in the 1980, damn things.
Also your foreign POW's theory doesn't fare much better as that would mean we should be finding a vast amount of foreign regimental buttons.

[tyna]

put that in your pipe and smoke it 

[benny]

I'm with Eric on this one. Can remember being in hopyards when I was a kid and it was a well known fact that old cloth was used as a fertilizer which was known as shoddy. Also,a farm I detect used to be hopyards and 9 out of 10 signals are buttons including military ones when there has been no military camp/base or whatever anywhere near this farm. There's just too many to be casual losses unless all the old soldiers went there for a working holiday!

[Mark]

Perhaps old cloths were used in some circumstances, on small farms maybe, but it seems illogical that old cloths, foreign or otherwise were used on an industrial scale as fertilizer, especially in an age where everything was recycled or re-used; certainly not enough to account for most buttons we find anyhow.  Throwing my support behind Geoff's casual loss theory on this one 

[Meatslicer]

I dont think they were fertilizer, but more landfill. The stuff farmers tip in to holes on fields they will be plowing is usually then covered with farmyard manure and straw. Human nightsoil is still being stuck onto fields especially in the vale of glamorgan where they put treated human waste on in the form of black grainy stuff which I am told is very smelly. (I wouldnt know coz I cant smell anything. I have been detecting right next to a storage pile of this stuff and everyone else in the field was gagging but I was completely oblivious.) Unfortunately there are minerals used in the process that get left in the stuff and gives loads of false signals.

I have heard of the stuff being called shoddy, usually it was the waste from recycled cotton and wool material that couldnt be put back into cloth made in cotton mills and weaving mills in the 19th and 20th century.

I think essentially we find buttons for the same reason we find buckles and strap ends. Farming was bloody hard work and done by huge numbers of labourers before the machinery was employed to do the work. That number of people walking/working/driving animals/plowing sowing reaping by hand would have generated loads of cast off bits of clothing . In fact I think it is suprising we find coins at all amongst the stuff they would have been dropping because they werent paid a lot for doing all of this.

Just think about it, if on just one field which has been in use since the iron age, one person a year dropped one coin, that means there are at least 2500 coins in each field. And you wonder why we find so many buttons?

Eric

[Neil]

I also fall into the "casual loss" camp on this one. Have you seen the size of some of the fields we go on!?! You would need at least two battalions of jackets to cover half a field! Besides that in all my days detecting I have never found a French, German or Italian military button. Plenty of General Service buttons (the grey coats were worn long after service}, RAF and regimental buttons, but no foreign ones.

Regarding fly buttons (four holes} - they are still found on pairs of Levis Dockers today and were on all our flares and cords as kids. As were snake buckles - remember them guys - been around since Roman times the snake clasp.

I tend to find mainly the pewter and tombac buttons - which can be quite decorative. I never mind finding buttons as I always think "Lose a button, lose a coin!"

Interesting debate this

Neil

[Val Beechey]

I was thinking about this topic today. My thought is that  you don't find loads of buttons in every field. WHY??
Well, if you think about todays fields you'll realise that they are either pasture or ploughed or hay. This must have been the same in days gone by so theres the answer. The most labour intensive fields are where you find all the buttons.
Thats why I haven't found many. I've only detected on pasture so far.
Now I know why I don't find any goodies.

Val

[tyna]

You need to find yourself some ploughed land, finds rate will increase then 

[Al.Thepastfinder, ( Alan )]

 I don't think the old clothes  were used as a fertizer as such, but to help hold and retain the moisture and fertilizer and that was put down,  also as Humus to help encourage the worms so they can produce Oxegen and to help keep the soil particles apart instead of compacting,
Al.

[dances with badgers]

i figured it was due to all the rough sex going on because every one was tanked up on ale.only a thought 

[tyna]

take a deep breathe and calm down my boy 

[dances with badgers]

its one theory lol .in my mind i have benny hill running on a constant loop with bits of kenny everret thrown in