328 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



AMERICAN PEAT MACHINES. 



It seems to have been reserved to American ingenuity to 

 demonstrate to the world that it was adequate to master the 

 eccentricities of a material which had defied the efforts of the 

 most ingenious mechanics of the old world ; and in our country, 

 within the past three years, it has been demonstrated that Ave 

 can take the lead in this important and difficult branch of indus- 

 try, as we have done before, in the matter of reapers, mowing 

 machines and other implements of domestic economy calculated 

 to facilitate the labor of human hands and to lessen the strain 

 upon human muscles. As a fuel, peat is always improved by 

 condensation ; and of course the efforts of all inventors have 

 tended to the completion of a machine which would insure the 

 utmost density for the peat when dried. The simplest form of 

 mechanical contrivance, applied to peat, is the common " pug- 

 mill," such as is used in preparing clay for the brick-maker. 

 It is found that even this simple operation greatly facilitates the 

 drying process, and produces peat of more uniform density than 

 can be produced by the methods already described, in which the 

 manipulations are performed exclusively by hand-labor. But 

 inasmuch as the peat must be removed from the mill in a wet 

 state, carted to the dumping ground, and then fashioned in the 

 usual manner of working hand peat, but little is gained in the 

 economy of labor, and other machines have been invented which 

 combine the three processes of grinding, compressing and 

 moulding the peat into blocks of convenient size. 



In 1865, Mr. S. Roberts, of Pekin, N. Y., invented a machine 

 for which much is claimed. We have no reliable knowledge 

 whether at this time the sanguine expectations of the inventor 

 have been realized ; but from a recent letter written by him to 

 a gentleman in Connecticut, we learn that the operation of dig- 

 ging the peat, feeding it into the machine, and carrying it to the 

 drying ground, is performed by steam-power, derived from a 

 twenty-horse engine. This machine, with all the apparatus 

 complete, costs $4,000 at the manufactory, and the purchaser is 

 required to pay a royalty of fifty cents per ton. Its capacity is 

 said to be equal to the production of twenty-five tons per day. 



During the past summer the manufacture of peat has been 

 conducted on a somewhat extensive scale at Lexington, in this 

 State, by separate companies, operating the two rival machines 



