SOILS. 23 



to drain for a few months, much of it is fit for fuel ; and it 

 is always of advantage to the muck heaps, as an absorbent 

 of the liquid and gaseous portions of animal and other vola- 

 tile manures ; or it is of great utility when applied alone to 

 a dry, gravelly or sandy soil. 



Cultivation of Peat Soils. When it is desirable to culti- 

 vate a peaty soil, the first process is to drain it of all the 

 moisture which has given to it, and sustained its present 

 character. The drains must be made sufficiently near to 

 each other, and on every side of the bed ; or they must, at 

 least, be so located as effectually to intercept and carry off all 

 the springs or running water which saturates the soil ; and 

 they should be deep enough to prevent any injurious capil- 

 lary attraction of the water to the surface. When it has 

 been thoroughly drained, the hommocs if any, must be cut 

 up with the mattoc or spade, and thrown into heaps, and 

 after they are sufficiently dried, they may be burned, and the 

 ashes scattered over the surface. These afford the best top 

 dressing it can receive.^ Sand or fine gravel, with a large 

 quantity of barn-yard manure and effete lime, should then be 

 added. On some of these, according as their composition 

 approaches to ordinary soils, good crops of oats, corn, roots, 

 &c., may be grown ; but they are better suited to meadows, 

 and when thus prepared, they will yield great burthens of 

 clover, timothy, red top, and such of the other grasses as are 

 adapted to moist soils. Subsequent dressings of sand, lime, 

 manure and wood ashes, or of all combined, may be after- 

 wards required, when the crops are deficient, or the grasses 

 degenerate. 



Peat contains a large proportion of carbon, and the silicates 

 in which such soils are deficient, (and which they procure 

 only in small proportions from the farm-yard manure, but 

 more largely from the sand or gravel,) are essential to be 

 added, in order to furnish an adequate coating for corn stalks, 

 straw and the valuable grasses. As they are exhausted, 

 they must be again supplied or the crops will fail. Besides 

 yielding an important' food to the crop, lime is essential to 

 produce decomposition in the mass of vegetable matter, as 

 well as to combine with and aid in furnishing to the grow- 

 ing plants, such of their food as the atmosphere contains. 

 Ashes are among the best applications, as they possess the 

 silicates, lime, potash, and other inorganic materials of plants 

 in great abundance, and in a form readily adapted to vegeta- 



