MAN 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



MAR 



their effects also are not permanent; and in dry seasons they 

 do little or no good. In applying them, the nourishment of 

 the plants only is considered ; no regard being had to loosen- 

 ing the earth : they are not, therefore, sufficient for heavy 

 lands. Stiff loams and clay require lime and dung, to break 

 the cohesion of their parts. Beans also, and tap-rooted plants, 

 in general require such manures as are worked into the land 

 by the plough : for top-dressings operate but a little, way 

 within the surface, except on thin soils, where they certainly 

 are of great use ; and are also beneficial to Turnips, by push- 

 ing the young plant hastily into rough leaf, and thereby 

 securing it against the fly ; but they are of no farther utility. 



FOLDING. This is resorted to by all open field farmers, 



as the preparation for Wheat ; and their chief dependence is 

 upon this species of top-dressing, where the quantity of farm- 

 yard dung is insufficient for their purpose. This mode of 

 manuring is peculiarly adapted to farms of considerable 

 extent of hill or common pasture, or grass-lands that never 

 come under the plough. In such farms, by bringing the 

 sheep in the evening to the fold, a considerable quantity of 

 manure will be made, that would otherwise be lost. If the 

 pasture, upon which the sheep feed through the day, be good, 

 they may be folded, without much detriment to the animal, 

 for a great part of the year : but where the pasture is scanty, 

 this cannot well be done ; for the sheep will not be able to 

 pick up a sufficiency of food through the day, to enable them 

 to bear the fatigue of travelling to and from the fold, and 

 fasting all night. And unless the sheep have turnips or hay 

 during the winter, their dung will be of small value. It is a 

 bad practice to crowd more sheep into a fold than can lie 

 down at their ease ; and it is equally bad to confine young 

 and old, strong and weak, in the same fold. It is far better 

 to afford them room enough, and to let them remain on the 

 same spot two or three nights, till it be sufficiently manured. 

 Feeding sheep in a fold can only be practised on light dry 

 soils. Here it is still more necessary, neither to crowd the 

 stock, nor to put in the weak with the strong : for they will 

 tread down and waste the food ; and in the contention for it, 

 the strong will deprive the weak of their proper share. On 

 light dry soils, sheep will do good, by giving it cohesion with 

 much treading; but on clays or strong loams this does much 

 injury to the land : turnips, &c. cannot therefore be fed off 

 in such soils, except in dry seasons ; but must be pulled and 

 eaten upon a dry stubble or pasture. If folding be supposed 

 necessary on account of the manure, where farm-yard dung 

 is not made in a sufficient quantity, and other manure is not 

 readily to be obtained ; might not a greater stock of muck be 

 raised, by littering a dry part of the yard, or a warm corner 

 of some pasture, with straw, fern, or whatever litter could be 

 had in greatest plenty? penning them there in hard weather, 

 and letting them run into the adjacent pasture only during 

 the day in fine weather. A great quantity of manure might 

 thus be raised in winter from a flock; and, provided they 

 had ample room in the pen, and were to be well supplied with 

 dry litter, the sheep might sustain less injury in thus lying 

 warm and dry, than from being folded on naked land, often 



wet, and in an open exposure. To conclude, " The 



doctrine of the proper application of Manures from orga- 

 nized substances," says Sir Humphrey Davy, " offers an 

 illustration of an important part of the economy of nature, 

 and of the happy order in which it is arranged. The death 

 and decay of animal substances tend to resolve organized 

 forms into chemical constituents; and the pernicious effluvia 

 disengaged m the process, seem to point out the propriety of 

 burying them in the soil, where they are fitted to become 

 the food of vegetables. The fermentation and putrefaction 



of organized substances in the free atmosphere, are noxious 

 processes : beneath the surface of the ground, they are salu- 

 tary operations. In this case, the food of plants is prepared 

 where it can be used; and that which would offend the 

 senses, and injure the health, if exposed, is converted, by 

 gradual processes, into forms of beauty and of usefulness ; 

 the fetid gas is rendered a constituent of the aroma of the 

 flower ; and what might be poison, becomes nourishment to 

 animals, and to man." 



Mappia ; a genus of the class Polyandria, order Mono- 

 gynia. -GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix : perianth one- 

 leafed, five-parted, permanent ; parts roundish, concave, 

 coloured within. Corolla : petals five, roundish, having claws, 

 spreading, scarcely larger than the calix. Stamina: filamenta 

 numerous, (sixty,) capillary, broader at the tip, the length of 

 the corolla, inserted into the receptacle ; antheree ovate. 

 Pistil: germen globular, superior; style columnar, incurved, 

 permanent; stigma capitate. Pericarp: berry ovate, one- 

 celled. Seed: single, ovate, large, involved in a thick viscid 

 aril. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Calix: five-parted. Co- 

 rolla: five-petalled. Germen: superior. Berry: one-seeded. 

 Seed: arilled. The only known species is, 



1, Mappia Guianensis. This is a shrub, with branches 

 full of little turbercles, ramping over trees to their very tops, 

 and dividing into many alternate branchlets, which are long, 

 and hang down ; upon these are alternate leaves, smooth, 

 tliick, and narrowing at the base, six inches long, and half 

 that wide, petioled ; flowers in little bunches; corolla white; 

 berry red, the size of a cherry ; the skin fleshy, firm, slightly 

 acid. Native of Guiana, on the banks of the river of Sine- 

 mari ; flowering and fruiting in May. 



Maranta; a genus of the class Monandria, order Mono- 

 gynia. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix: perianth three- 

 leaved, lanceolate, small, superior. Corolla: one-petalled, 

 ringent ; tube oblong, compressed, oblique, bent in ; border 

 six-cleft; alternate outer segments ovate, equal, smaller; one 

 of these the lowest, two the uppermost; two alternate lateral 

 very large, roundish, representing the lower lip ; uppermost 

 small, two-parted. Stamina: filamentum inembranaceous, 

 resembling a segment of the corolla ; antherse linear, fastened 

 to one edge of the filamentum. Pistil: germen roundish, 

 inferior; style simple, the length of the corolla ; stigma obso- 

 letely three-cornered, bent in. Pericarp: capsule roundish, 

 obsoletely three-cornered, three-celled, three-valved. Seed: 

 single, ovate, wrinkled, hard. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. 

 Calix: three-leaved. Corolla: tiifid. Nectary : three-parted, 

 the third part bearing the antherae on its upper side. The 

 generic or natural character of Marauta, is given differently 

 from Schreber's, as above, by Swartz, in his observations. 

 Calix: perianth three-leaved, superior; leaflets lanceolate, 

 longer than the tube of the corolla, contiguous. Corolla: 

 one-petalled, ringent; tube cylindric, compressed, oblique, 

 gibbous; border trifid ; divisions equal, lanceolate-ovate, one 

 lowest, two lateral ; nectary three-parted, connate with the 

 tube ; two lower divisions oblong, lateral, larger, representing 

 a lower lip; the third upper larger, vaulted, serving for a 

 filamentum. Stamina: filamentum none; antheree linear, 

 fastened to the upper edge of one of the segments of the nec- 

 tary ; the rest as before, except that the style is crooked in 

 the middle. The species are, 



1. Maranta Arundinacea; Indian Arrow-Root. Culm 

 branched, herbaceous ; leaves ovate-lanceolate, somewhat 

 hairy underneath. This has a thick, fleshy, creeping root, 

 which is very full of knots ; from which arise many smooth 

 leaves, standing upon reed-like footstalks, which arise imme- 

 diately from the roots : between these come out the stalks, 



