QUANTITY OF PEAT PER ACRE. 339 



market with the product of home labor, having the raw material 

 in exhanstless quantities, close at hand. 



QUANTITY OP PEAT FUEL PER ACRE. 



And this leads us to remark that persons unacquainted with 

 the subject can hardly realize how large a quantity of dry fuel 

 can be taken from an acre of peat bog. Several estimates have 

 recently been published as to the number of tons of dry fuel 

 obtainable per acre, from each foot in depth, varying in amount 

 from 350 to 1,000 tons. Some of these we know are unreliable, 

 and from some experiments of our own we should prefer to 

 state the quantity at no more than 250 tons for each foot in 

 depth ; but even at this rate a meadow four feet deep will yield 

 a thousand tons per acre ; a quantity quite sufficient to satisfy 

 the desires of the most sanguine owner or manufacturer, consid- 

 ering its real value and its relation to the prices at which such 

 lands may be bought in every section of the State. Of course, 

 the quantity of fuel per acre must vary not only according to 

 the depth, but density of the deposit in various localities, and 

 any person who desires to be accurate may test the matter for 

 himself. He has only to cut from his drained meadow a cubic 

 foot of peat of average quality, carefully dry it until it reaches 

 the condition fit for fuel, and ascertain its weight. Multiply 

 the weight so obtained by 43,560, the number of square feet in 

 an acre, and he will have the number of pounds per acre that 

 the bog will produce from every foot in depth. 



METHOD OF TESTING THE QUALITY OF PEAT FUEL. 



As the difference in the value and quality of peat for fuel 

 purposes is hardly less than that between the best oak or walnut 

 wood, and the poorest quality of white pine, it will be useful for 

 all interested in the subject to make their own experiments 

 before incurring any considerable expense in preparations for 

 its manufacture. The best proof of the value of a peat bog is 

 in the manner and duration of its combustion, and the quantity 

 of ash which remains by weight in comparison with the weight 

 of dry peat before ignition. To ascertain these important par- 

 ticulars, peat should be selected from all the different strata 

 that may exist, and from different parts of the bog, and each 

 sample should be crushed, and consolidated by hand into balk 



