Excrement was a hot commodity in the cities of nineteenth-century Japan. The widespread use of night soil as an organic fertilizer meant that residents of big cities such as Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka could sell their waste rather than dispose of it themselves. Thanks to this trade, early modern Japanese cities enjoy a reputation as remarkably green spaces, in which residents lived in salubrious harmony with nature.  Let us put poop into the modernizing city. Night soil remained an important fertilizer until after World War II, but poop’s place in the urban landscape changed a great deal in the decades after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. City officials worried that night soil haulers might offend the sensibilities of Western visitors to the city. They also feared cholera, a disease new to Japan. By 1920, the rapid growth of Tokyo had completely disrupted the market for night soil and other organic refuse.