194 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. XI, No. 1, 



During the past summer the writer was directed to obtain for 

 the Ohio State Geological Survey an estimate of the extent and 

 value of the bog and marshland in Ohio, to detennine the depth 

 of these vegetable accumulations, the general physical and chem- 

 ical characters of the deposits, and to study them with a view to 

 their commercial and agricultural utilization. 



The uses of peat are many. There has recently been shown a 

 renewed interest in the problem of peat utilization. In Europe 

 this question receives the most careful and exhaustive study by 

 trained specialists. Reports from Europe indicate the success of 

 various new processes, and it is therefore a matter of the greatest 

 importance to determine the extent of our own peat resources, the 

 conservation of which should be second to none of the other 

 economic sources of wealth. Peat can be employed as packing 

 material, bedding, absorbent, fertilizer; as insulating material, 

 for paper pulp and cardboard; in woven fabrics, artificial wood, 

 paving and building blocks, for mattresses. There are certain 

 chemical by-products derived from the distillation of peat as 

 alcohol, ammonium sulphate, nitrates, and various dyes, the 

 demand for which is steadily increasing. An interesting chapter 

 in peat utilization is that of peat as fuel, power or proclucer gas, 

 and coke. Many of our peat lands make our most productive 

 agricultural soils when properly reclaimed. The most interesting 

 studies are connected with the agricultural possibilities of peat 

 soils; the nutritive value of peat to cereals and legtimes, the 

 character and variety of crops and garden plants which may be 

 profitably cultivated on peat land; the sterility and the diseases 

 of some of these soils; the nattire of functional and structural 

 responses in plants to such soils, and many other problems. This 

 is a period of "intensive" agriculture, of investigation and dis- 

 covery, and attention must sooner or later be turned towards our 

 immense peat deposits. 



The plants concerned in the formation and development of 

 bogs and marshlands bear a relation of the utmost importance 

 with reference to the purity, character, thermal, and physiolog- 

 ical value of peat soils. The bearing of a floristic study upon the 

 distribution of bog and marsh plants is also of considerable eco- 

 logical and physiological interest. The aim has been, therefore, 

 not only to present a list of the plants found in the various areas 

 visited, but to show also the natural association of the plants into 

 societies, and the order in which development and succession of 

 plants in bogs proceeds. Moreover, the present bog and marsh 

 plant societies are being destroyed so rapidly that some historical 

 record is indeed of primary importance. In almost all places the 

 work of man inaugurated conditions by cutting, clearing, fire, 

 ditching, pasturing, and cultivation, which have destroyed much 

 of the original flora of Ohio, and hence in many places a mixture 



