324 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE USE OF PEAT AS FUEL. 



There are some localities in the States where peat has been . 

 used more or less as fuel for many years, and there are some 

 families which having all the facilities for obtaining other kinds 

 of fuel in abundance, would consider their winter arrangements 

 for comfort incomplete, without a few loads of well prepared 

 peat close at hand. At Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and 

 some of the towns in Barnstable County, where wood is scarce, 

 the inhabitants have found their peat bogs a source of great 

 convenience and comfort ; and the only thing needed to make 

 them a source of profit everywhere to the owners, seems to have 

 been the adoption of some cheaper and more rapid process for 

 digging, shaping and consolidating it, than is usually pursued. 

 And this brings us to a description of the various methods by 

 which peat has been, from time immemorial, prepared for 

 domestic use ; and which are as rude as the ancient methods of 

 treading out grain with the feet of men and animals. 



THE OLD PROCESS OF PREPARING PEAT. 



There arc two processes of preparing peat for use, in this 

 country, without the intervention of machinery, and the peats so 

 prepared are designated by the names of slane peat and hand 

 peat, respectively. The " slane " peat is so called from the 

 name given to the implement which is used in its preparation, 

 and which is said to be of Irish origin. It is simply a narrow 

 spade, somewhat longer than the common garden spade, about 

 five inches in width, and having a sort of wing upon the side at 

 right angles to the blade ; so that in working upon the face of 

 the bog, from left to right, it cuts two sides of each peat at the 

 same time. The spade, or slane, should be quite sharp, but not 

 so heavy as it is usually made, and the same implement fashioned 

 of wood and simply shod with cast-steel, of the thickness of a 

 common saw-plate, will be found much preferable. The imple- 

 ment above described, a common spade, and a wheel-barrow arc 

 all the tools requisite for preparing peat fuel, where the object 

 is simply to cut and dry it in the most expeditious manner for 

 family use, without reference to its quality. 



In some parts of Massachusetts, where but few attempts have 

 been made to prepare peat for market on an extensive scale, but 

 little attention has been given to the arrangement of a definite 



