428 [SENATE 



upon hy certain ingredients having alkaline or basic properties, so 

 that the acids may be saturated, and the noxious salts decomposed 

 before the peat can be advantageously used for manure. 



I have always earnestly protested against the employment of acid 

 peat on soils, and have advised farmers to convert it into a neutral 

 compost by means of animal manures, capable of generating ammo- 

 nia, and lime or ashes, the two last being mixed into the compost 

 after it has fermented sufficiently to give out ammoniacal gas by the 

 action of alkaline matters. Lime and potash will disengage a por- 

 tion of ammonia from some kinds of peat, and will saturate the nox- 

 ious acids, converting them into fertilizing salts by combining with 

 them. Hence lime is generally a valuable top dressing for reclaimed 

 peat bogs, and will render them fertile. 



Earthy substances^ which will combine with acidsj serve on bogs 

 by combining with the acids of peat. Hence a fine loam from de^ 

 composed mica slate, or from granite, is an excellent fertilizer ; for 

 the alkalies, the alumina, magnesia, oxiles of iron and manganese, 

 act as electro-positive bodies, and combine with the acids, or electro* 

 negative ingredients in peat^ and form neutral combinations of vari- 

 ous degrees of solubility. Sand, consisting of grains of quartz, is 

 inert, and it is a waste of labor to spread it on a bog, when any sub- 

 soilsj containing the other minerals, can be had ; and by attending to 

 the nature of soils the farmer may act with a more just discrimina* 

 tion, and thereby make more thorough improvements at less cost. 



To m^ake a compost with peat, Dundonald remarks : 



" This object is best attained by mixing newly made and com- 

 pletely slacked lime with about five or six times its weight of peat, 

 which should be moderately humid, and not in too dry a state. In 

 this case, the heat generated will be moderate, and never sufficient to 

 convert the peat into carbonaceous matter, or to throw off, in the 

 state of fixable air, the acid therein contained. The success of most 

 operations, but more especially those of a chemical nature, greatly 

 depends upon a regular and due observance of circumstances appar- 

 ently trivial. This preparation of lime and peat is in a peculiar 

 manner conducive to the growth of clover, and of the short, and, as 

 they are called, sweet kinds of pasture grasses. The soil, also, by 

 the application of it, acquires such a predisposing tendency to pro- 

 mote the growth of such grasses as to prevent its growing afterward 

 rank, coarse, or sour herbage. Notwithstanding that this prepara- 

 tion of lime and peat is certainly, when properly made, a valuable 

 manure, yet the advantages that may be derived, by using alkaline 

 salts instead of lime, are of much greater importance and general 

 utility, inasmuch as the peat, by alkaline salts, is rendered complete- 

 ly soluble ; whilst, by the application of lime, no greater proportion 

 of it is made capable of solution than what is equivalent to the quan- 

 tity of volatile alkali, which may be generated in the process ; besides 

 which a large proportion of the acids contained in the vegetable 

 matter, combine with that which is calcareous, and form insoluble 

 compounds." P. 110 to 112. 



" The most efficacious method of applying peat to poor barren 



