No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 501 



place of excelsior, as a filler for mattresses, and also as a raw material 

 for paper manufacture. Another use to which the more compact 

 materials of peat beds are being put is that of a fuel. It is well 

 known that, for centuries, the Irish peasant has warmed his cottage 

 by use of the heavy turf or sods of peat cut from some nearby bog. 

 The present experiments have the object of putting this fuel into 

 more compact, convenient, and durable form for transport and con- 

 sumption, and very interesting results have been obtained by the 

 making of briquettes of peat, with or without the use of combustible 

 bindings. Most of the acetic acid used in chemical manufacturing 

 operations is now produced by the distillation of wood whose chief 

 constituent is cellulose. Distillation methods have also been applied 

 to peat with more or less promising results. 



The last of these technical uses to which I would now refer is the 

 use of dry peat in the manufacture of commercial fertilizers. For 

 this purpose thoroughly decomposed peat is used. It is prepared 

 by drainage, drying, and granulation by a milling process. Thus 

 prepared it contains in some cases as much as 3 per cent, of 

 nitrogen. Its use in fertilizers might, in view of the fact that the 

 nitrogen as it is in peat is practically useless to plants, be regarded 

 as undoubtedly fraudulent in so far as the nitrogen contained in the 

 peat enters into the sum total which the fertilizer guaranty requires 

 shall he present in the mixed fertilizer. In other words, the case is 

 not simply that of an inert filler having no fertilizer constituents 

 which would appear upon the usual methods of analysis and which 

 is employed solely as a make-weight in the manufacture of low 

 grade fertilizers. The fertilizer manufacturers claim, however, that 

 the use of this or some other organic material in the base goods from 

 which the various fertilizer mixtures are made by the addition of 

 one or more of the fertilizer salts is desirable, because it serves as a 

 "conditioner," that is, a material which keeps the goods in excellent 

 drilling condition even when they have been exposed in storage to 

 extremes of dampness or dryness; whereas, without some such 

 material the fertilizer tends either to become moist if stored in damp 

 places, or to dry and harden into lumps if stored in places too dry. 

 No farmer who has applied fertilizer by means of a drill or by means 

 of a broadcaster, will question the importance of a good physical 

 condition in a fertilizer, but I am confident that, on the other hand, 

 he will not be satisfied to pay for peat nitrogen at nitrate, ammonia, 

 or tankage nitrogen prices, unless he be satisfied that a good physical 

 condition cannot be secured at a less price. It has certainly not been 

 demonstrated that the use of this material is necessary to the 

 maintenance of a good drilling condition in a fertilizer. There are 

 unfortunately no data available whereby the quantity of nitrogen 

 contributed by peat and similar materials can be ascertained from 

 the examination of a finished fertilizer. Indeed, there is yet lacking 

 an entirely satisfactory test of its presence in any quantity. In the 

 existing condition of knowledge we may, however, gain some slight 

 satisfaction from the facts that peat is* commonly introduced into 

 fertilizer base by the wet mixing process and that, as Professor 

 Haskins, of the Massachusetts Experiment Station has shown, peat 

 nitrogen after exposure to the heat and acid of the wet mixing process 

 becomes more highly soluble and has shown itself by vegetation 



