"lOO ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



fore, that those who have attempted to crop these cumulose soils after 

 treating them with lime ahme have ofleu obtained unsatisfactory 

 yields. lOeouomic returns should not be expected, except where 

 liberal dressings of rock and potash, rich in the latter element, are 

 employed. The fertilizers need not, however, be expensive in propor- 

 tion to their concentration in plant food tor the reason that nitrogen, 

 by far the most expensive plant food, is little if at all required on 

 these lands. 



No attempt will be made to describe in this place the detailed 

 methods useful in the culture of onions and celery upon these lands. 

 Various experiment stations have published numerous bulletins 

 treating more or less directly upon these subjects and those interested 

 will de well to obtain the Farmers' Bulletins and other publications 

 treating :of them. 



There is another way in which muck is made useful on a farm 

 which deserves brief consideration at this point. It has already been 

 noted that the upper, looser layers of the j)eat are very spongy and 

 can, therefore, hold larger quantities of liquid without dripping, and 

 it has been pointed out also that they contain important amounts of 

 nitrogen which though not available in their original state, can, if 

 the proper fermentations be set up, be converted into jjlant food. 

 These qualities have led many farmers to expend the lal>or necessary 

 to dig out piles of the muck allow them to stand where they can 

 drain and undergo the changes brought through the winter's freezing 

 and the summer's heating, and have then applied the material as a 

 top dressing or as a material to be mixed with the soil. The results 

 of these operations have not indicated that the treatments of drain- 

 age, freezing, and oxidation have been sufficiently effective to make 

 the bed thus prepared a highly useful soil constituent. When, how- 

 ever, this porous material is put into the drops of a stable, or partly 

 mixed with the rotting manure heap in the barnyard, it becomes im- 

 pregnated with the stable or barnyard liquor and sets up a much 

 more rapid fermentation. T am unable to recite chemical evidences 

 showing the substances into which the nitrogenous materials of the 

 peat are changed by the fermentations set up under these conditions, 

 nor to give the results of exact vegetation experiments with the fer- 

 mented materials, but the general judgment is that after such fer- 

 mentation the peat contributes a very considerable proportion of 

 nitrogen to the plant food supply of the soil upon which it is used 

 as a dressing. It is, however, of great value as a bedding material. 

 The sphagnum moss gathered by cheap labor in German swamps and 

 imported into our seaboard cities under the name df "German 

 moss," has been quite largely used for bedding horses in city stables. 

 It shows a very large capacity to absorb stable liquor, does not 

 undergo disagreeable fermentations, and has considerable durability. 

 It does not, however, keep the animals in so clean a condition as good 

 rye or wheat straw^ Certain of its constituents seem to retard the 

 amoniacal fermentation. On the other hand, more highly decomposed 

 muck turns, when used in the drops, into a heavy black mud, hard to 

 handle, and not most conducive to stable cleanliness. In my intro- 

 ductory words T referred to the fact that these peat bed materials are 

 coming to increasing technical use. At the present writing, it is pos- 

 sible to make only a brief reference to some of these uses. The moss, 

 picked and dried, is being employed as a packing material in the 



