MANGER. 



MANURES. 



MANGER. A trough or crib in the stable, 

 in which corn or cut provender for the horse is i 

 placed. The usual method is to have them the 

 whole breadth of the stall ; but this is unneces- 

 sary, as, if 18 or 20 inches in length, and 14 or 

 16 in breadth, they will be sufficient for every 

 useful purpose. In the fixing of them, they 

 should be so contrived as to admit of being 

 "emoved for the purpose of being cleaned. 

 This could, however, never be done in the old 

 method of fixing them, but by a little contri- 

 vance may be easily effected. It is, in many 

 cases, a convenient plan to have them in the 

 corners or angles at the heads of the stalls. 

 See STABLE and STALL. 



MANHADEN (Clupea manhaden). A species 

 of herring frequenting the waters of the New 

 England States and Long Island, where it goes 

 under the various names of Bony Fish, Moss or 

 Mnrtlntiiktr, ll<iril/u'<it!, and Ptiuhtm^cn. The usual 

 length of the manhaden is from 10 to 14 inches. 

 From July to the last of August, the shores of 

 the sea swaria with shoals of this fish, which, 

 bt'iii^ very oily, is but little resorted to for food, 

 though the better adapted for manure, to which 

 piirp-.se it is most extensively applied, and with 

 such beneficial effects that lands formerly worn 

 out M as hardly to compensate for their tillage, 

 now yield abundant crops of wheat, grass, &c. 

 It is taken in large numbers upon the coast of 

 Massachusetts, where it is used for mackarel- 

 bait, manure, and is also becoming an article 

 of commerce. For the former purpose it is 

 worth from $2 to .$4 per barrel, in proportion 

 to the demand. At Lynn, in 1836, 1500 barrels 

 were used for bait for other fishes, and as many 

 more were thrown upon the land. At Province- 

 town they are used only for mackarel-bait. At 

 Sandwich, where they are very abundant, the 

 inhabitants strew them upon their lands by the 

 cart-load ; and thus, for miles, immense quan- 

 tities enrich the soil. It is computed that a 

 single manhaden of ordinary size is equal in 

 richness to a shovelful of barn-yard manure. 

 It is getting likewise to be thought worthy of 

 p .ation as an article of food. In 1832, 

 300 bbls. were inspected; in 1833,480; 1834, 

 1008; 1835, 1443; 1836, 1488. 



Mr. John Wells, of Long Island, in a commu- 

 nication to the editor of the Cultivator, gives the 

 following information in relation to the mode 

 of applying this fish as a manure, and the good 

 effects derived from the practice. 



"I have," he says, "used fish manure 40 

 years successively, and my land is much bet- 

 ter than when I first commenced fishing. I 

 make use of from 50,000 to 150,000 of fish, 

 known here by the name of mossbankers, per 

 annum ; and could I get a million, I should 

 have none to spare. There is no manure that 

 I use equal to fish for a crop of wheat, and all 

 kinds of roots ; but they do not have that effect 

 after repeating that they have at first. But this 

 is the case with all kinds of manure. Thence 

 the necessity of mixing manures. 10,000 moss- 

 bankers per acre are sufficient for a crop of 

 wheat, without any other manure. My practice 

 is, to put on 12 or 15 large wagon-loads of lit- 1 

 ter, and 5,000 fish per acre ; and then I calcu- i 

 late for a good crop of wheat, and after the 

 wheat a good burden of grass for 3 or 4 years. 

 97 



The same quantity of manure makes a good 

 crop of Indian corn. The manure fishery is 

 the making of the east end of our island. I 

 think I may say that the production of our land 

 is 3 times as much as it was before we com- 

 menced fishing. But it must not all be attri- 

 buted to fish. We exert every means to make 

 and collect manure, for without it we cannot 

 raise our bread. For a farmer to break up a 

 piece of land, and lay it down poorer than it 

 was at first, is like borrowing money to pay 

 his interest. It is astonishing to me that there 

 are some few farmers yet, who will let their 

 manure lie and ferment in the yard, when they 

 must know that they lose half its virtue , for 

 there is no time that it brings forth vegetation 

 so well as when in a state of fermentation under 

 the soil. I might say that our soil is a sandy 

 loam." 



The best history of the manhaden, which is 

 a favourite food of the whale, is by Latrobe, 

 published in Transactions of the Jim. Phil. Society, 

 vol. v. 



MANNA (Fr. manne ; It. manna}. The con- 

 crete juice of the Fraxinus ornus, a species of 

 ash growing in the south of Europe. The juice 

 exudes spontaneously in warm, dry weather, 

 and concretes into whitish tears ; but the 

 greater part of the manna of commerce is ob- 

 tained by making incisions in the tree, and 

 gathering the juice in baskets, where it forms 

 irregular masses of a reddish or brownish co- 

 lour, often full of impurities. Manna consists 

 of two parts ; one a saccharine, crystallizable 

 principle, named mannil, closely resembling 

 sugar; the other an acrid, uncrystallizable 

 principle, which is the purgative agent in the 

 manna. This substance is now seldom used, 

 except as a purgative for infants. 



MANIOC. The Indian name of the starchy, 

 nutritious matter obtained from the shrub 

 Jatropa manihot, from which cassava and ta- 

 pioca are made in the West Indies. See 

 TAPIOCA. 



MANURES. The word manure, according 

 to Todd, is derived from the French manouvrer 

 Lemon .gives the derivation as follows : " Ma- 

 nure, ' omnia a manu operando.' " Skinner, 

 "All improvements in agriculture brought in 

 by the hand." Webster, Eng.Dict., says, " Ma- 

 nure, Fr. manasuvrer, but in a different sense; 

 Norm, rnainoverer, to manure ; main, Lat. ma- 

 nus, hand, and ouvrer, to work, Lat. operor" A 

 manure may be defined to be any fertilizing 

 compound or simple ingredient added to a soil, 

 of which it is naturally deficient; and as all 

 cu. \\-^ l ed lands should contain the earths, sili- 

 ca, ca: Donate of lime, alumina, decomposing 

 organic matter, and certain saline substances, 

 it is evident that in cases where any one of 

 these is contained in the land in insufficient 

 quantities for the supply of cultivated vegeta- 

 bles, that then the addition of that substance, 

 either in its simple or in a compound form, 

 constitutes the great art of manuring. 



Fertilizers therefore naturally divide them- 

 selves into 3 classes : 1. The earthy, which are 

 by far the most permanent portions of a soil, 

 and are usually applied in the largest propor- 

 tions ; 2. The organic (vegetable and animai), 

 which are the least permanent, and are used in 

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