Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/536

Rh 512 M A N M A N Ammonia Salts. The principal one is sulphate of ammonia, largely produced in gas works by neutralizing gas liquor with sulphuric acid ; it is usually sold on a basis of 24 to 25 per cent, of ammonia. Soot is valuable on account of the sulphate of ammonia it con tains; the percentage of ammonia varies from 1J to 4. Nitrate of soda is a natural deposit ; it is greatly used as a top dressing for wheat and barley. It usually contains common salt, and when purified is sold on a basis of 95 per cent, of pure nitrate. Organic Nitrogenous Substances. Wool, hair, fish, flesh, horn, blood, rape cake, damaged cotton cake and other oil cakes. Wool refuse (shoddy), according to its quality, contains from 4 to 8 per cent. of nitrogen, flesh 14 to 15 per cent, blood (dried) 13 to 15 per cent, rape cake 4 to 5 per cent., linseed cake about 4 percent., cotton cake (undecorticated) nearly 4 per cent., and cotton cake (decorticated) over 6 per cent, of nitrogen. 2. Phosphatic Manures. (a) The following phosphatic minerals are used for the manufacture of superphosphate of various strengths, and of compound manures : coprolites (Cambridge, Suffolk, and Bedfordshire), containing 50 to 55 per cent, of phosphate of lime ; phosphorite (Spanish and Portuguese) ; apatite (Norwegian and Canadian), containing often as much as 80 per cent, phosphate of lime ; South Carolina (land and river) phosphate, 52 to 56 percent, phosphate of lime ; French phosphate ; Sombrero phosphate, 70 per cent, phosphate of lime ; Cura9oa phosphate, 80 percent phosphate of lime ; Kavassa phosphate ; Aruba phosphate, &c. (b) Bones. Raw bones, as 5 inch and ^iuchbones; bonemeal; bone dust, having about 48 per cent, phosphate of lime and 4^ per cent, of ammonia ; boiled bones, with 60 per cent, phosphate of lime and about 1 8 per cent, of ammonia ; dissolved bones ; bone ash, with 70 per cent, phosphate of lime ; animal charcoal, with 70 to 80 per cent, phosphate of lime. (c) Phosphatic Guanos. Lacepede Island guano ; Mexillones guano ; Maiden Island guano ; Fanning Island guano ; and many others varying in composition from 60 to 90 per cent. phosphate of lime. 3. Saline Materials. Potash salts (chloride and sulphate) ; kaiuite, with 20 to 25 per cent, sulphate of potash, and also sulphate of magnesia and common salt ; wood ashes, with about 10 per cent, of potash ; common salt. 4. Calcareous Manures. Lime, chalk, marl, gypsum, shell sand, gas lime, coal ashes, road scrapings, &c. 5. Carbonaceous Manures. Sawdust, peat, sea-weed, vegetable refuse, &c. 6. Special and Compound Manures. The basis of these is super phosphate, which is mixed with other manuring materials to meet the special requirements of particular crops and soils. The foregoing remarks made on the application of manures to different kinds of crops may now in conclusion be summed up. Farmyard manure, in. order to be most beneficial, should be applied as quickly as possible after it is made, the best time being in autumn or early winter. Nitrate of soda should be applied as a top dressing early in spring ; its effect will be seen in the first season only. Ammonia salts, guano, dung, &c., are best applied to heavy land in autumn or winter, either before the seed is sown, or after the plant is fairly above ground, but in the case of light land early in spring. The effect of bones in the Various form of dissolved bones, bone dust, raw bones, &c., will last two or more seasons according to the. quantities used and their respective solubility. Lastly, it may be observed that the presence of lime is essential to the economical use of manures. As regards cereal crops, it has been found that mineral manures alone, whether simple or complex, do not pro duce appreciable increase of crop, but that nitrogenous manures, whether as ammonia salts, nitrate of soda, or farmyard manure, greatly benefit the crop ; that nitrate of soda does rather better than ammonia salts.; and that, while on fairly heavy land farmyard manure will yield good crops, the best results are obtained by using mineral and nitrogenous manures together. On clay soils a top dressing of nitrate of soda often answers all practical purposes, but on light soils nitrate of soda or ammonia salts should not be used without mineral manures, while it is advisable even on heavy land to use superphosphate as well. For root crops, on cold clays nothing answers so well as mineral superphosphate alone, but on light land dissolved bones, bone dust, precipitated phosphate, or a compound artificial manure will be found to be much preferable to superphosphate. Bone meal mixed with mineral super phosphate makes, for instance, a good manure for roots ; for mangolds Peruvian guano and common salt in addition are useful, and for potatoes potash salts with phosphatic and nitrogenous manures. For pasture land the use of artificial manures is, as a rule, not economical ; nitrogenous manures raise the quantity and phosphatic and potash manures improve the quality of the herbage, while, for worn-out pastures, potash with dissolved bones or superphosphate or super phosphate and guano will do much good. The most economical way of manuring pasture land is to apply farm yard manure liberally, or feed it off with cattle, giving cotton cake in addition. The employment of artificial manures in a judicious manner has shown the occupier of land that it is not necessary for him to be bound down to any system of rotation of crops which may be practised in his particular district, but that he has the means of pursuing the course of cropping, system of manuring, and general management of his farm which will yield him the best returns. No more striking instance of this could be put forward than the experience of Mr Prout, who at Sawbridgeworth, Herts, has grown with much success cereal crops, year after year, on heavy clay land, selling the whole of the growing crops, and restoring the fertility of the soil by artificial manures. The land was purchased in 18G1, and up to the present time (1882) the crops have been as good as ever, and the land has not been deteriorated, but on the other hand improved, by continuous corn growing. The experiments of Messrs Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamsted and of Dr Voelcker at Woburn have been thus verified on a large scale in the experience of Mr Prout, and have shown beyond all pos sibility of doubt the efficacy and economy of a liberal use of artificial manures. (A. v.) MANUSCRIPTS, ANCIENT. See DIPLOMATICS and PALEOGRAPHY. MANUTIUS. I. ALDUS MANTJTIUS (1450-1515). Teo- baldo Mannucci, better known as Aldo Manuzio, the founder of the Aldine press, was born in 1450 at Sermoneta in the Papal States. He received a scholar s training, studying Latin at Rome under Gasparino da Verona, and Greek at Ferrara underGuarino da Verona. Having qualified himself for the career of a humanist, according to the custom of the century, he went in 1482 to reside at Mirandola with his old friend and fellow-student, the illustrious Giovanni Pico. There he stayed two years, prosecuting his studies in Greek literature. Before Pico removed to Florence, he procured for Aldo the post of tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio, princes of Carpi. To Alberto Pio the world owes a debt of gratitude, inasmuch as he supplied Aldo with funds for starting his printing press, and gave him lands at Carpi. It was Aldo s ambition to secure the literature of Greece from further accident by committing its chief masterpieces to type ; and the history of his life is the record of the execution of this gigantic task. Before his time four Italian towns had won the honours of Greek publications: Milan, with the grammar of Lascaris, ^rEsop, Theocritus, a Greek Psalter, and Isocrates, between 1476 and 1493 ; Venice, with the Erotemata of Chrysoloras in 1484; Vicenza, with reprints of Lascaris s grammar and the Erotemata, in 1488 and 1490; Florence, with Alopa s Homer, in 1488. Of these works, only three, the Milanese Theocritus and Isocrates and the Florentine Homer, were classics. Aldo selected Venice as the most appropriate station for his labours. He settled there in 1490, and soon afterwards gave to the world editions of the Hero and Leander of Musseus, the Galeomyomachia, and the Greek Psalter. These have no date; but they are the earliest