Manure

Use in the book

England’s blessings include being well manured, well cultivated, alongside peace, established religious order and defences supplied by human skill and nature. The praise also celebrates James and the union of the English and Scottish crowns in 1603; it retains that earlier setting in the 1651 printing. Burton immediately qualifies the national encomium: thistles grow among the roses, and public abuses need reform. Cultivated land is an advantage, not proof that the commonwealth is faultless.

The praise of Dutch industry gives manure its noun use. Burton argues that industry, government and commerce can make a country prosper despite limited natural resources. Intensive cultivation can make barren soil fertile; the following account of decline blames changed government and diminished husbandry rather than exhaustion of the same soil. These are Burton’s historical and economic comparisons. The original Botero margin gives cultura, cultivation, with diligence as the means by which a large population makes land fertile. The sheep example adds a narrower material explanation: the Dio margin’s stercus is dung, enriching land where sheep are penned. That detail belongs within the broader cultivation argument rather than replacing it.

In the imagined constitution, tenants receive long leases, fixed rent and a known lease premium so that they have reason to manure their holdings, plant trees, drain and fence. Supervisors determine suitable land uses and how the ground should be manured, tilled and improved. The proposal joins agricultural skill to security of tenure and public oversight. It preserves separate holdings for lords and tenants and is followed by an explicit rejection of complete equality.

The geographical digression marks a claimed limit to human skill. Abundant water makes the land around Damascus a paradise; the Arabian wilderness, Burton says, is so dry, rocky and sandy that no art can manure it. Art means skill here. The negative remains absolute in his account, but its assertions of universal barrenness and uninhabitability are historical generalizations, not a verified description of the region. The surrounding discussion moves from rival conjectures about climate to further questions about differences between nearby places. Human cultivation and natural conditions remain distinct contributors.

Cultivated land is not invariably praised as a healthy residential site. Burton’s compressed account of Varro groups manured grounds with marshes and waters as sources of bad air, and reports advice to sell if the situation cannot be remedied. The supplied comparison identifies narrower warnings in Varro and distinguishes the speakers: a question about an inherited unhealthy estate, advice to sell or abandon it, and subsequent precautions about wind, height and sunshine. The following discussion also disputes the preferred direction a house should face. Manured still means cultivated; neither the word nor Burton’s summary warrants reducing this account to dung alone or treating it as present health advice.

Finally, a plant can be set and manured by writers. The physical oak associated with Marius has been cut down, but its literary life continues through verse. Set means planted and manured means tended: the writers cultivate the enduring image of the plant. The surrounding account connects patronage with the wish for an immortal name, attributing that motive to Cosimo de’ Medici while conceding that genuinely charitable benefactors exist. This is cultivation of memory in poetry, not an attestation that a person is literally manured.

Related entries

Commonwealth: Cultivation as a condition of public prosperity.

Estate: Landholding and the security of tenants.

Utopia: The imagined programme of improvement and supervision.

Gardens and walks: Cultivated landscapes and their use.

Exercise: Work and physical activity.

Fame and reputation: Literary survival and the desire for an enduring name.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 7–11the well-cultivated country among England’s blessings, followed by the qualification about public abuses.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 18–22manure as intensive cultivation, the original cultura and dung margins, and industry contrasted with decline.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 14–19tenants’ incentives, supervised land use, cultivation and the preserved distinction of ranks.
4. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 14–18watered Damascus and the wilderness said to defeat all cultivation, amid competing climatic explanations.
5. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 4–8manured grounds in disputed historical advice about a healthy site, with the compressed Varro attribution qualified.
6. Member 3 Charity Combining All Three Kinds of Love Pleasant Profitable and Honourable · paragraphs 21–26the oak of Marius tended in verse, literary survival and the motives imputed to patronage.

In this edition

“Well manured” becomes “a well-cultivated country”: well and cultivated render the descriptive fragment, while a and country are supplied from the national context. “By no art can be manured” becomes “no skill can cultivate”; the passive is recast as an active construction without weakening the negation. Cultivate retains the broad agricultural meaning in both passages.

The other selected forms distinguish much manure, intensive cultivation; manure, cultivate; manured, cultivated; and the poetic set and manured, planted and tended. In the land-use list, manured, tilled and rectified remain three coordinated terms, rendered cultivated, tilled and improved. The original margins add cultura, cultivation, and stercus, dung, with the latter specifying the sheep example rather than every use of manure. Human skill, natural conditions and the means of fertilisation remain distinct.

cultura

Printed “cultura” (Latin; lemma).

Cultivation or tending of land; cultura here is an ablative form.

Here: Diligent cultivation makes the soil fertile in the marginal sentence attributed to Botero.

Context: The margin makes a large population the agent; Burton’s body makes industry the governing cause. These related formulations are not merged into one quotation.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: diligenti cultura

Modern rendering: through diligent cultivation

Word and construction: Diligenti supplies diligent, cultura cultivation and through renders the ablative of means.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

manure · well manured

Printed “well manured” (English; lemma).

Cultivate or improve land; well means successfully or thoroughly.

Here: A well-cultivated country among England’s claimed blessings.

Context: Burton’s praise retains its Jacobean setting, including James and the 1603 union of crowns, and is immediately qualified by abuses requiring reform.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: well manured

Modern rendering: a well-cultivated country

Alignment scope: original descriptive fragment rendered with a contextual noun supplied

Word and construction: Manured supplies cultivated and well remains well; a and country are supplied from the national context, not separate words in the original fragment.

Translator-supplied words: a

Translator-supplied words: country

Further local use

Printed “manure” (English; lemma).

Citation key: manure.

Here: Cultivate or improve the land.

Context: Burton proposes secure long leases, a known rent and a known lease premium as incentives for tenants; fine means a lease payment, not a punitive charge.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: manure, plant trees, drean, fence

Modern rendering: to cultivate it, plant trees, drain it, fence it

Word and construction: Manure supplies cultivate; it is supplied from the preceding lands, as it is again for drain and fence. The list distinguishes cultivation from its other improvement activities.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “manured” (English; lemma).

Citation key: manure.

Here: Cultivated or improved for productive use.

Context: The imagined supervisors determine suitable uses of land and its division between lords and tenants; Burton subsequently rejects complete equality.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: how to be manured, tilled, rectified

Modern rendering: how it should be cultivated, tilled, and improved

Word and construction: Manured supplies cultivated, tilled remains tilled, and rectified supplies improved; it is supplied from the preceding land.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “manured” (English; lemma).

Citation key: manure.

Here: Cultivated or improved by human skill.

Context: Burton declares the Arabian wilderness incapable of cultivation because of waterlessness, rocks and sand, contrasting it with watered Damascus; the absolute geographical generalization is his.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: by no art can be manured

Modern rendering: no skill can cultivate

Word and construction: Art supplies skill; the passive be manured becomes active cultivate, preserving the negative no and the claimed incapacity.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

Further local use

Printed “manured” (English; lemma).

Citation key: manure.

Here: Cultivated, worked or improved.

Context: Burton includes cultivated grounds among unhealthy sites in a compressed account attributed to Varro. The supplied comparison distinguishes the original speakers and the narrower warnings about riverside orientation and marshes.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: marish and manured grounds

Modern rendering: marshy and cultivated land

Word and construction: Manured supplies cultivated, marish marshy, and grounds land; nothing in this phrase restricts cultivation to the addition of dung.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

manure

Printed “manure” (English; lemma).

Cultivation or improvement of land, used as a noun.

Here: The intensive working of land that Burton says follows industry and makes barren soil fertile.

Context: His economic claim praises industry; the following sheep example adds dung-fertilisation as a particular means rather than defining all manure narrowly.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: much manure

Modern rendering: intensive cultivation

Word and construction: Manure supplies cultivation; much is rendered intensive in this account of extensive effort.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

manure · manured

Printed “manured” (English; lemma).

Tend or cultivate, extended figuratively to a plant’s continued life in literature.

Here: Poets preserve the oak of Marius in verse after the physical tree has died.

Context: Burton’s literary-survival image occurs in the account of patronage and desire for fame; he imputes that motive to Cosimo while expressly conceding that sincere charity also exists.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: set and manured by those ever-living wits

Modern rendering: planted and tended by those ever-living minds

Word and construction: Set supplies planted, manured tended and wits minds or writers; the plant, not the writers themselves, is what is tended.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

stercus

Printed “stercus” (Latin; lemma).

Dung or animal excrement.

Here: The fertilising material left where sheep are penned.

Context: The original marginal quotation attributed to Dio specifies dung, while Burton’s English only says that sheep improve pasture; the supplied note identifies Dio’s use as an analogy for a city enriched by visitors.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording and original alignment: ob stercus

Modern rendering: because of the dung

Word and construction: Ob supplies because of and stercus dung; the article the is supplied by English usage.

Modern container: note

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.