266 ESSAYS anp OBSERVATIONS * 
I intended to fay, and to which what f 
have mentioned was only a kind of pre- 
amble: Peat mofs, being wholly a vege- 
table matter, muft, if reduced toa tho- 
rough {late ef putrefaction, anfwer the 
fame purpofes for fertilizing ground as. 
other putrefied vegetables. While it lies 
in the mofs, there is too great a quantity 
of water to raife a fuflicient degree of 
heat, to bring the vegetables of which 
peat-mofs is compofed, whether actually 
growing, decaying, or decayed, toa com= 
pieat degree of putrefaCtion. But, if it 
were taken out of the mofs, and laid in 
heaps like other vegetables to rot, with a 
degree of moifture tuitable for that pur- 
pofe; and if, to begin and alfo quicken the 
putrefaction, green frefh fucculent plants 
were employed in a fufficient quantity 
firft to raife a heat; this I make no doubt 
would, by communicating it to the mofly 
tubftance, in a fuitable time, and by right 
management, reduce the whole mafs to 
the ftate defired. This already is in fome 
meafure practifed in Holland, where they 
Mr 
