228 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



PEAT AND MUCK. 



THE following remarks, by Prof. J. P. Norton, of New Haven, are 

 taken from the Albany Cultivator. In the United States there is 

 comparatively little real peat. Our extremes of temperature seem not 

 to be favorable to its growth, and, so far as my experience extends, it 

 is only to be found on certain parts of the New England sea-board, 

 where the climate somewhat resembles that of those parts of Europe 

 where peat formations abound. 



Our natural boggy or swampy accumulations are for the most part 

 included under the term muck, and are a species of vegetable deposit 

 in low grounds, rather than a regular vegetable growth, such as may 

 be seen in Scotland, uplifting the surface of a peat moss even above 

 that of the surrounding and drier land. This muck has not by any 

 means the indestructible nature of true peat ; on exposure to the air, 

 in place of becoming a hard, insoluble mass, as is the case with peat, 

 it soon crumbles away, and decomposes into a rich vegetable mould. 

 This process is especially rapid if it is mixed in a compost, or laid in 

 the bottom of a barn-yard. Here, then, in the outset, our farmers 

 escape one great difficulty with which those of Scotland are obliged to 

 contend. We have to do with a mass of rich vegetable material easily 

 convertible into manure ; they with the same material as to its ultimate 

 composition, but in a present form which, if once dry, bids almost 

 entire defiance to the ordinai-y action of the elements. Their most 

 advantageous method of forming a soil upon the surface of a peat bog, 

 is, in many cases, to burn by successive parings to a depth of one, two, 

 or three feet, and to mix the ashes thus formed with clay or earth 

 brought up from under the remaining peat. Such processes, and, in 

 fact, all processes for forming what must be for the first few years an 

 almost wholly artificial soil, are always expensive and tedious. It is 

 therefore fortunate for us that our farmers, in reclaiming their swamps, 

 are not. in a great majority of instances at least, obliged to have 

 recourse to them. As soon as our swamps are drained, natural influ- 

 ences commence their work upon the surface, and alter it in such a 

 manner as soon to form a soil capable of bearing valuable crops. 



Much has been said, of late, respecting the value of peat charcoal. 

 The preparation of this charcoal, and its uses in absorbing ammonia, 

 have been always put forward as a prominent advantage connected 

 with the various projects for reclaiming bogs by partial burning. It 

 has been generally supposed that any form of charred vegetable matter 

 possessed, in a considerable degree at least, the same powerful ab- 

 sorbent properties, with regard to ammonia, which exist in wood char- 

 coal. Experiments, however, made by Prof. Anderson, of Scotland, 

 show that this is not the fact ; peat charcoal acts as a deodorizer, but 

 not powerfully as an absorbent. This charcoal also, or any charcoal, 

 cannot, in itself, hold a high rank as a manure, its value being less 

 than an equal bulk of any common vegetable substance, on account of 

 its undecomposible nature. As an absorbent of ammonia, Prof. An- 

 derson, from the results of careful experiments, does not recommend 

 peat charcoal. Peat itself was found to be extremely valuable as an 



