The Ten Best Kinds of Ancient Manure and Number Two will Shock You!

VARUSSCHLACHT in Osnabrück, Germany– Museum and Kalkriese Park,
Beware! Biological biodegradable mines, ie. cow-patties.

Romans wrote about many practical things including farming or more precisely, farm management.  Marcus Terentius Varro was a contemporary of Cicero (106-43 BC).  He wrote prolifically on a number of subjects including language, history and philosophy.  Unfortunately, little remains to us today besides parts of De lingua Latina libri XXV[1] (Twenty-five Books about the Latin Language) and his Rerum rusticarum libri III (Three Books about Country Matters).[2]  As manure is today’s subject, we will be discussing Books about Country Matters, farms being in the country.

I happened upon this particular chapter and thought it was interesting mostly because the sentence, “stercus optimum scribit esse Cassius…” caught my eye.  Translated: “Cassius writes that the best manure is…”.  How could I resist.  I had to know.

What should be taken into consideration is in which places on the farm should manure be used, how and with which sort of manure should it be done, as there are some differences in them. Cassius writes that the best manure is that of birds, excepting that of marsh birds and of those that swim,[3] of those, he indicates the manure of the pigeon to be outstanding as it is rather hot[4]and able to leaven the soil.  It is best sprinkled, as you would seed, not placed in piles like the manure from cattle.  I judge the best manure to be from the aviary of thrushes or blackbirds.  It is not only useful to the field but is also a food for the cattle and swine as it makes them fat.  And that is why if you, as the lord, set out that the manure should remain on the farm, the renter pays less than if they have use of it. Cassius wrote that second to the manure of pigeons was that of people, third that of goats, sheep and of donkeys.  The least good manure for crops belongs to horses, for in the pastures of course it is the best, as is the manure of the other beasts of burden fed on barley, because it makes much grass. It is proper to place the dung-hill near the farm-house, so that it may be carried with as little work as possible.  And they say that a snake will not be born in it, if a piece of oak is driven into the center of the pile.[5]

And there you have it.  The website Modern Farmer agrees that poop is not simple and that there are differences between those produced by different animals.  We still use the designations of hot and cold to describe different kinds of manure, but I am fairly certain that we don't use any kind of manure as feed.

---

[1] Marcus Terentius Varro, Georg Goetz, and Fritz Schoell, De Lingua Latina Quae Supersunt: Recensuerunt Georgius Goetz et Fridericus Schoell; Accedunt Grammaticorum Varronis Librorum Fragmenta (Lipsiae: In aedibus B.G. Teubner, 1910).

[2] M. Terenti Varronis, Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, ed. Gregorius Goetz and Henricum Keil (Leipzig: B. G. Teubneri, 1912).

[3] Ducks, geese, etc.

[4] Check out Modern Farmer for a  rundown on manures that uses the idea of hot and cold but bases it on the carbon/nitrogen ratio.  They put poultry manure in the hot manure category.  Another thing which is interesting to me, as a historian of medicine, is the idea of hot as a virtue of the manure.  Galen and Dioscorides use this method in attributing and categorizing the effects of plants and the properties of things.  The hot, cold, wet, dry categories work alongside humoral theory.  However, Dioscorides did not call his materia medica hot, he said they were warming.  Varro’s use of this term may relate more to why modern manures are considered hot or cold. The reason for this is that when a hot manure is applied directly to the soil, it burns the plant material it is applied to.  This also explains the direction to sprinkle the pigeon manure rather than to pile it like cow manure, which according to the Modern Farmer is cold.

[5] Varronis, Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, 49. The translation is my own, aided by Marcus Terentius Varro and Lloyd Storr-Best, On Farming: M. Terenti Varronis Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, Bohn’s Classical Library (London: G. Bell, 1912), 81–82.  Quae loca in agro stercoranda, videndum, et qui et quo genere potissimum facias : nam discrimina eius aliquot. Stercus optimum scribit esse Cassius volucrium praeter palustrium ac nantium; de hisce praestare columbinum, quod sit calidissimum as fermentare possit erram. Id ut semen aspargi oportere in agro, non ut de pecore acervatim poni.  Ego arbitror praestare ex aviariis turdorum ac merularum, quod non solum ad agrum utile, sed etiam ad cibum ita bubus ac subus, ut fiant pinques.  Itaque qui aviaria concucunt, si cavet[o] dominus stercus ut in fundo maneat, minoris conducunt, quam ii quibus accedit.  Cassius secundum columbinum scribit esse hominis, tertio caprinum et ovillum et asininum, minime bonum equinum, sed in segetes, in prata enim vel optimum, ut ceterarum veterinarum, quae hordeo pascuntur, quod multam facit herbam.  Stercillinum secundum villam facere oportet, ut quam paucissimis operis egeratur. In eo, si in medio robusta aliqua materia sit depacta, negant serpentem nasci.