[ n6 ] 



Under' the peat is a bed either of clay or sand ; the peat is full 

 of flaggy leaves, and hollow stalks of rushes. These vegetable 

 matters are accompanied with a substance like pitch, of a bitami- 

 nous nature, which lies between the stalks of the rushes, and the 

 leafy remains, and constitutes the inflammable part thereof. It Is 

 used as the common fuel of the country, and makes a clean and 

 pleasant fire, particularly well adapted to the purposes of the dairy. 

 An acre of land will furnish an immense quantity, insomuch that in 

 the parish of Catcott it has been sold for a term of twenty-one 

 years as high as thirty pounds. 



There is no great difficulty in the mode of curing peat. In the 

 months of May and June it is cut out with a keen instrument into 

 the shape of bricks, left single on the ground for a few days to dry, 

 by which time they lose part of their moisture, and become firm 

 enough for piling in pyramidal heaps of about a waggon load each ; 

 in this state they are compleatly dried, and then sell for ios. per 

 waggon load on the land where they are dug, and the price of 

 digging and carrying is five shillings per load. Though the outer 

 covering or sward of this boggy land will burn, yet it is not much 

 esteemed as fuel, being soon consumed. 



Before I suggest a method of improving these bogs, let us ad- 

 vert to the probable cause of their present sterility. I conceive 

 then that stagnant water is the grand operative principle which has 

 for ages kept the superstratum buoyant, and swimming as it were, 

 on its surface ; this lifts up, and swells the soil, making it shake, 

 and give way on treading. In confirmation of this idea it is found, 

 that at the depth of four or five feet the black earth becomes a 

 mere pulp, in which an iron rod will descend with a trifling exer- 

 tion to the depth of the clay, and it invariably happens, that the 

 worse the bog the deeper the clay. 



In the third description of land stated at the beginning of this 

 disquisition, the clay is found at the depth of three, four, or five 

 feet, and gradually sinks thence to the lowest part of the peat bog, 

 where it is found at the depth of eighteen or twenty feet. If there- 

 fore the surface of the two sorts of land be equal, one foot of stag- 

 nant water on the clay of the former will be accompanied with 

 fourteen or fifteen feet on the clay of the latter. Such a body of 

 water continually remaining at all seasons of the year (for in the 



4 dry eft 



