ma·nure (m -n r , -nyr)n. Material, especially barnyard or stable dung, often with discarded animal bedding, used to fertilize soil. tr.v. ma·nured, ma·nur·ing, ma·nures To fertilize (soil) by applying material such as barnyard dung.
[From Middle English manuren, to cultivate land, from Anglo-Norman mainouverer, from Vulgar Latin *man oper re, to work with the hands : Latin man, ablative of manus, hand; see man-2 in Indo-European roots + Latin operr , to work; see op- in Indo-European roots.]
ma·nurer n. ma·nuri·al adj. |
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| The further he rode, the happier he became, and plans for the land rose to his mind each better than the last; to plant all his fields with hedges along the southern borders, so that the snow should not lie under them; to divide them up into six fields of arable and three of pasture and hay; to build a cattle yard at the further end of the estate, and to dig a pond and to construct movable pens for the cattle as a means of manuring the land. Tomorrow ere fresh Morning streak the East With first approach of light, we must be ris'n, And at our pleasant labour, to reform Yon flourie Arbors, yonder Allies green, Our walks at noon, with branches overgrown, That mock our scant manuring, and require More hands then ours to lop thir wanton growth: Those Blossoms also, and those dropping Gumms, That lie bestrowne unsightly and unsmooth, Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease; Mean while, as Nature wills, Night bids us rest. I at first attributed this to some change in the nature of the soil, but the inhabitants assured me that here, as well as in Banda Oriental, where there is as great a difference between the country round Monte Video and the thinly-inhabited savannahs of Colonia, the whole was to be attributed to the manuring and grazing of the cattle. |