MANU 



MANURE 



29 



adorned the walls with frescoes. The public institu- 

 tions include an academy of arts and sciences, a 

 lil.rary with 80.000 vols. and 1000 MSS., a museum 

 of antiquities, an oliservatory, archives, a botanical 

 garden, a large military hospital, &c. Virgil was 

 born at Pietole (anc. Andes), now a suburb of 

 Mantua. The industries include weaving, tanning, 

 and saltpetre-refining. Some 3000 Jews live in 

 Mantua. Mantua, an Etruscan town, was succes- 

 sively in the possession of the Romans, Ostrogoths, 

 and Lombards lcfore falling into the hands of the 

 emperors, who gave it to the Marquis of Canossa. 

 From him it passed to the Countess Matilda of 

 Tuscany in 1052. After her death it was a free 

 imperial city and joined the Lombard leagues against 

 the Hohenstaufen emperors. The Bnonacolsis made 

 themselves masters of the city in 1247, but were 

 ousted from power by the head of the Gonzaga 

 (q.v.) family in 1328. This dynasty, the head of 

 which was created duke by Charles V. in 1530, not 

 only maintained themselves against their great 

 rivals, the Visconti of Milan, but raised the city to 

 the height of its splendour and renown. The last 

 duke died childless in 1708, and his duchy was con- 

 fiscated by Austria, who kept her hold of it down 

 to 1866, except for two short periods ( 1797-99 and 

 1801-14), when it was in the possession of France. 

 Mantua has endured at least three great sieges, by 

 the Emperor Ferdinand II. in 1630, by the French 

 in 1797, and by the Austrians in 1799. During the 

 years 1830-59 it was the headquarters of much 

 political persecution by the Austrian government. 

 See Arcos History, in Italian (7 vols. 1871-74). 

 The //roriw' has an area of 911 sq. in., and a pop. 

 (1889) of 321,872. 



11:11111 (from the Sanskrit man, 'to think,' lit. 

 the thinking Ix-ing') is the reputed author of the 

 most renowned law- hook of the ancient Hindus, 

 and likewise of an ancient Kalpa work on Vedic 

 riti-. It is matter, however, of considerable doubt 

 whether both works belong to the same individual, 

 and whether the name Mann, especially in the case 

 of the author of the )aw-lxx>k, was intended to 

 designate an historical personage ; for, in several 

 passages of the Yedas (q.v.), as well as the Main 

 bliArata(q.v. ), Mann is mentioned as the progenitor 

 of the human race : and, in the first chapter of the 

 law-book ascribed to him, he declares nimself to 

 have been produced by Viraj, an oflspring of the 

 Supreme Being, and to nave created all this universe. 

 Hindu mythology knows, moreover, a succession of 

 Manns, ear-li ul whom created, in his own period, 

 the world anew after it had perished at the end 

 of a mundane age. The word Manu akin to our 

 'man' lielongs therefore, properly speaking, to 

 ancient Hindu mythology, ami il was connected 

 with the renowned law-lxiok in order to impart to 

 the latter the sanctity on which its authority rests. 

 This work is not merely a law-lx>ok in the Euro- 

 pean sense of the word, it i* likewise a system of 

 cosmogony; it propounds metaphysical doctrines, 

 t. :irhes the art of government, and, amongst other 

 things, treats of the state of the soul after death. 

 The chief topics of its twelve lx>oks are the follow- 

 ing : ( 1 ) creation ; (2) education and the duties of 

 a pupil, or the first order; (3) marriage and the 

 duties of a householder, or the second order; (4) 

 means nf siili-istenre and private morals: (5) diet, 

 purification, and the duties of women; (6) the 

 duties of an anchorite and an ascetic, or the duties 

 of the third and fourth orders; (7) government 

 and the duties of a king and the military caste; (8) 

 judicature anil law, private and criminal ; (9) con- 

 tinuation of the former and the duties of the com- 

 mercial and servile castes ; (10) mixed castes and 

 the duties of the castes in time of distress; (11) 

 penance and expiation: (12) transmigration and 

 final beatitude. Buhler haa proved that Max 



Muller was right in regarding the extant work as a 

 versified recast of an ancient law-book, the manual 

 of a particular Vedic school, the Manaras ; and 

 holds that the work, the date of which used to be 

 given at 1200 B.C., was certainly extant in the 2d 

 century A.D. , and seems to have been composed 

 between that date and the 2d century B.C. There 

 are many remarkable correspondences between this 

 work and the Mahabhiirata, suggesting the use in 

 both of common materials. 



The laws of Manu were translated by Sir William 

 Jones (1794). See also The Ordinances of Manu, trans- 

 lated from the Sanskrit, with introduction by Burnell, 

 completed by Hopkins ( 1886); The Laws of Manu, trans- 

 lated with extracts from seven commentaries by 0. Buhler 

 ( in ' Sacred Books of the East,' 1888 ). 



Manure. Any material, whether of animal, 

 vegetable, or mineral origin, which adds to the 

 fertility of the soil has been generally regarded as 

 manure. The application of stable and farmyard 

 manure, as also the ashes of plants, &c., to the 

 soil has been practised probably in all ages ; but the 

 scientific principles involved in this ancient practice 

 were but little understood until more recent times, 

 when chemists, lx>tanists, and physiologists set 

 themselves the task of explaining to the agricul- 

 turist the changes which are ever taking place in 

 the soil and in the plant itself. On virgin soils 

 crops may be grown for years without much 

 evident diminution in quantity or quality ; but a 

 period must come when there will be an exhaustion 

 of one or more of the constituents of plants, and 

 the soil can then \>e, no longer regarded as fertile. 

 That is to say, soils contain certain proportions of 

 certain ingredients ; and when these are abstracted 

 by the plant and carried away in the form of 

 crops, the soil must in time become exhausted. It 

 then Incomes necessary to add to the soil in the 

 form of manure such constituents as the crops have 

 removed in order that the land may regain fertility. 

 When we consider that Soils (q.v.) are formed 

 mainly from the weathering of r<x:ks, it will at once 

 l>e BBMntood how it is generally unnecessary that 

 manures should contain such tilings as magnesia, 

 iron, alumina, &c. Speaking generally, the con- 

 stituents which are removed by plants from soils, 

 the loss of which brings about that condition of 

 ' exhaustion,' are compounds of nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid, and potash ; and hence it is, in part at least, 

 that farmyard manure is so universally regarded as 

 the ' stand-by ' of the agriculturist, for that material 

 contains all those ingredients, and in a form easily 

 assimilated by plants. It must not be overlooked, 

 however, that possibly the chief advantages derived 

 from the use of farmyard manure are that it makes 

 the soil porous, and that the conditions which 

 result from the decomposition of the organic 

 matter are favourable to the development of 

 those micro-organisms which bacteriologists are en- 

 deavouring to prove are of as much importance as 

 the manure itself (see NITRIFICATION). Manures 

 containing large proportions of organic matter, such 

 as stable manure, wrack or seaweed, fish offal, &c., 

 have value as plant-food ; but the heat developed 

 during their decomposition, or rotting, and the fact 

 that the carlxmic acid resulting from that change 

 acts as a solvent on the mineral constituents of 

 the soil and otherwise, are of still greater moment. 



The first artificial manure systematically used 

 was probably Ixmes, applied in the earlier periods, 

 either in aii unground condition or simply bruised. 

 About the beginning of the 19th century, however, 

 it was proved that fineness of division rendered l>ne 

 more easily assimilated by plants ; and further pro- 

 gress still" was mode when Liebig introduced the 

 treatment of bone with sulphuric acid, whereby 

 chemical division was realised. There are about 

 50,000 tons of bone imported into Britain annually, 



