1919 Hotson; on Sphagnum Dressings 217 



In considering this problem several questions presented themselves : 

 Will the moss mildew? If so, can it be prevented? If stored wet, will it 

 heat? If so, how may this be overcome? If wet, will it decay? These 

 are some of the points that presented themselves at the outset. Others 

 cropped up as time went on. In order to arrive at some solution to the 

 problem, a series of experiments was undertaken. 



(a) Moss was stored in bulk in different ways: on the floor of a 

 well ventilated room ; on the floor in the basement of large buildings poorly 

 ventilated ; and in the open exposed to the weather. When stored exposed 

 to the weather, the moss is practically always saturated, which not only 

 makes it unpleasant to handle but adds materially to the expense of freight 

 if it has to be shipped. The outer portion of the pile also becomes so 

 bleached, weathered and broken that if the moss is not entirely spoiled 

 its usefulness is at least greatly impaired. Moreover, there is consider- 

 able opposition to sorting moss when it is excessively wet. Storing moss 

 in a cement basement proved quite satisfactory, except that there is more 

 tendency to mildew than where there is good ventilation. In some in- 

 stances a small amount of formaldehyde was sprayed between the layers 

 of moss as they were spread down. But this precaution was seldom neces- 

 sary. The moss never heats and seldom mildews except when infected 

 from the sacks or other things with which it comes in contact. 



If the method of storing in bulk is adopted the best results are ob- 

 tained by piling the moss in a heap in an unoccupied building where the 

 floor has previously been cleaned and sprayed with a 4% solution of 

 formaldehyde to destroy any mildew spores. It should be borne in mind 

 that the moss will retain its moisture a long time, consequently it may 

 seriously injure a valuable floor by warping the boards. • 



(b) Moss was stored in sacks as it comes from the bog. This method 

 proved satisfactory provided the sacks were sterilized before they were 

 used, otherwise the moss was apt to mildew. The most serious objection, 

 however, to using sacks is the expense. When stored for a considerable 

 time 75% to 80% of the sacks could not be used a second time on account 

 of partial decay due to constant moisture. Moreover, the scarcity of sacks 

 made it almost impossible to obtain sufficient quantities for shipping pur- 

 poses without using any for storage. 



(c) Moss was stored in bales. The shortage of sacks suitable for 

 shipping and the necessity for storing the moss became so acute that it 

 was necessary to devise some method of handling it which would not re- 

 quire sacks. Experiments were conducted in baling the moss. Through 

 the courtesy of the University of Washington a mechanic was put at the 

 disposal of the writer to assist in making a baler for this purpose. Here, 

 too, the qiiestion of whether sphagnum would heat or mildew when baled 



