TURN TRASH INTO TREASURE

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PROSPECTING TECHNIQUES
Once you've identified a general locale that looks promising, you'll have to try to figure out where people might have unloaded their trash. Sometimes everyone in a community had one chosen spot at which to leave refuse. These dumps were frequently located in gulches or ravines, and often downhill from a settlement . . . perhaps to prevent seepage into wells, or maybe because it's easier to haul trash down than up.

Of course, simply finding an abandoned garbage heap isn't the whole story. You must then determine—before devoting too much time to digging—whether it's old enough to hold potential value. The clues that most often signal a possible bonanza include sun-purpled bits of glass, blue pieces of early Mason jars, and the white porcelain liners from old-fashioned zinc canning lids. Screwtop bottles will indicate that the dump is anywhere from 30 years to mere days old ... cork-stoppered purple flasks, on the other hand, are an excellent sign that the trashpile is at least 70 years old.

However, since recent rubbish may be covering up old goodies, you will need to scratch around a bit and make a test hole or two. But once you're convinced that you've hit pay dirt, it's generally best to start excavating at one end and methodically turn over the entire area, shovelful by shovelful. (By simply potholing hither and yon, you'll likely miss more bottles than you uncover.) Dig gently, though, or your tool can smash what might have been a valuable find!

BACKYARD DIGS
Not everyone will be fortunate enough to discover a major untouched dumping ground, naturally, but virtually any old homesite will likely have a long-covered toilet pit or two. Outhouse locations can make easy and rewarding digs . . . and they aren't even unpleasant to investigate after enough years of bacterial action have worked their cleansing wonders.

Privies were—as you'd imagine—usually located handy to the house, and the sites were moved over at frequent intervals, so you might well find half a dozen searchable places side by side . . . earmarked by nothing more than a slight depression or perhaps a few rotten boards.

Now the same evidence may also mark a long-gone shed or springhouse. You can, however, usually determine whether the signs do indeed point to an outhouse location by using a probe ... a ten-foot-long metal rod with a T-shaped pounder that's much like a metal fencepost setter. Ordinary unexcavated ground will probably be hard all the way down, and may contain rocks, but the probe will penetrate soft outhouse dirt like an icepick going through warm butter.

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