-REMARKS ON PEAT AND LOAMY SOILS. 61 



wants in solidity. In this soil all the Gloxinias, the Pelargonia, Cal- 

 ceolarias, Fuchsias, and many other plants, will grow freely with deep 

 verdure of foliage ; hut it must never be permitted to become quite 

 heart-dry and parched. I may add, also, that the Thunbergias will 

 prosper in it, though not to such an extent of broad, deep foliage, as in 

 true peat. The mention of this word demands immediate explana- 

 tion. Peat is now in the mouth of every one, as " bog-earth " was 

 thirty years ago, and it occurs in all the pages of floriculture; but in 

 no one instance is it correctly used, nor do the parties employing the 

 term intend what they express. Peat is a short, easy word, and being- 

 used conventionally, passes for the heath-soil, or moor-earth, of Bag- 

 shot Heath, Sydenham Common, or Hampstead Heath, — the top 

 spit, in a word, of a heath-common, which consists almost entirely of 

 white, silicious sand, say 90 per cent., with some black vegetable 

 remains of heath or short grass, and decayed twigs ; the Prussian 

 tests (ferro-cyanurets of potassa and soda) detect in it also a trace of 

 iron. But peat, true peat of the turbary or peat-bog, is a very com- 

 pound substance, more approaching to a sodden marl than anything 

 else. It was thus described by Davy : — " The earthy matter of peats 

 is uniformly analogous to that of the stratum on which they repose ; 

 the plants which have formed them must have derived the earths that 

 they contain from this stratum. Thus, in Wiltshire and Berkshire, 

 where the stratum below the peat is chalk, calcareous earth abounds in 

 the ashes, and very little alumina and silica. They likewise contain 

 much oxide of iron and gypsum, both of which may be derived from 

 the decomposition of the pyrites (sulphur and iron) so abundant in 

 chalk. Different specimens of peat that I have burnt, from the granite 

 and schistose soils of different parts of these islands, have always 

 given ashes principally silicious and aluminous," &c. 



A specimen of very old Berkshire peat, exposed twenty years to the 

 air, was of close texture and grey-black ; not a particle of sand could 

 be seen in it. When broken and comminuted, Thunbergia alata 

 throve in it with a luxuriance that nothing could surpass. But peats 

 are not to be trusted ; therefore we must apply to leaf-mould and 

 heathsoil, to bind which a tenth or less portion of finely-powdered 

 pipe-clay (which consists of pure alumina and some silex extremely 

 line, if we mistake not) might be blended with safety and effect. 



01 leaf-mould, one of the best adjuncts to the potting department, 



