PEAT SOILS. 



PEAT SOILS. 



by the presence of other substances, but the 

 above sketch will afford a tolerably correct 

 view of its ordinary properties ; and this kind 

 of knowledge will very materially aid the 

 farmer in proceeding to examine the mode in 

 which the composition of such soils may be 

 altered so as to be rendered tenantable by use- 

 : il varieties of plants. 



The most common delusion in which the 

 possessors of peat soils are apt to indulge, is 

 the belief in the possibility of rendering them 

 permanently productive without either previous 

 drainage or the application of earth. The me- 

 lancholy attempts of this kind which I have 

 witnessed on the peat land of various parts of 

 England, especially in timber planting, can 

 only excite the pity of those who witness the 

 effects of such misspent time and money. The 

 young trees too, which are most commonly 

 employed in these ill-judged attempts, are usu- 

 ally of the fir tribe, precisely the kind the least 

 adapted to prosper in a bog of water and peat. 

 Common reflection would suggest that, if any 

 kind of trees could be expected to vegetate with 

 even moderate vigour in soils such as these, 

 composed as they are often of merely a mass 

 of hard inert vegetable matters, saturated with 

 a weak solution of green vitriol if any kind 

 of plantations would progress, it would be the 

 alder, the willow tribe, or the hardy birch tree, 

 ten HI- ions of life, which can endure more mois- 

 ture and subsist on poorer soils than most other 

 plants. After the slightest consideration we 

 should hardly decide upon placing on such 

 swamps trees which delight in dry upland 

 is the Scotch fir and the larch ; yet we 

 can hardly traverse a single line of railway, 

 driven as their constructors have too often 

 been to take for their line of country the most 

 trembling, dangerous bogs, the most worthless 

 heaths, without being struck with the ludicrous 

 appearmce of bright yellow-topped larches and 

 ragged, sickly-looking Scotch firs, soaking in 

 bog-u-ater and that too not in mere patches, 

 but over hundreds of acres. I do not confine 

 these observations to the north of England to 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire but the remark 

 applies to many of the southern counties: for 

 instance, by the road-side between Wareham 

 and Po>le, in Dorsetshire, may be seen similar 

 wet, peaty, heath plantations of Scotch firs. 



In effecting the underdraining of peats, the 

 first error to be carefully avoided is placing the 

 drains too near the surface. I have invariably 

 found in deep peats, that where the drains can- 

 not be placed beneath the peat, they should be 

 constructed at least at a depth of from 4 to 6 

 feet or even more ; and this is not adding ma- 

 terially to the expense, for the peat-owner will 

 find that one drain at the depth of 5 or 6 feet 

 will produce more powerful and far more per- 

 manent good effects than three drains at a 

 depth of three feet. The good results of depth 

 in peat-land drainage will be found by the 

 fanner years after the soil is reclaimed for, 

 as the peat is dried and its upper portion de- 

 composed and rendered solid by cultivation, 

 the mass of peat gradually and very materially 

 sinks, and this too in deep peats for a length- 

 ened period. And as this contraction is chiefly 

 confined to the upper portion of the peat, the 



resu.t is that the improving soil of the surface 

 gradually approaches the drains, and that in 

 some varieties "of the softer kinds of peat to a 

 very injurious extent. Such too is the porous, 

 spongy nature of most peat soils, that it is dif- 

 ficult to remove entirely the water from those 

 portions of them lying on a level with the 

 sides of the drains, and in consequence the 

 roots of many cultivated crops are apt to pene- 

 trate, under the shallow-drain system, into the 

 corrosive water of the peat, which they never 

 do without material injury. 



For let me again remind the farmer, it is not 

 the mere presence of too much water which 

 renders the peat moss sterile, but the noxious, 

 astringent, irony quality of that water. 



In the reclamation of peat soils, the neces- 

 sary drainage being effected (see DRAIXINO), 

 the next important object is to furnish the soil 

 with a sufficient quantity of earthy matter to 

 support vegetation, and this may be done in 

 several ways : that by paring and burning, so 

 common in various parts of Cambridgeshire 

 and Lincolnshire, I consider the worst of all 

 modes ; for it merely furnishes the soil by an 

 expensively rapid progress with the freed 

 earths of the peat, which its gradual decom- 

 position would by other modes more profitably 

 and steadily effect. 



The first operation after the water has been 

 drained off is to break up as deeply as possi- 

 ble, by the common and the subsoil-ploughs, 

 the surface of the peat; and then, if good well- 

 burnt lime can be procured, there is no earthy 

 addition so rapid and so powerful in dissolving 

 and rendering pliable the peat as this. A few 

 ploughings, assisting the combined operations 

 of the atmosphere and the lime, will, in a few 

 weeks, bring the soil into such a state as to 

 enable it to bear a first crop. The quantity of 

 lime should be about 250 or 300 bushels per 

 acre; but the quantity of necessity must vary 

 with the readiness with which the lime is pro- 

 curable ; where it is very expensive, the culti- 

 vator is obliged either to reduce the quantity, 

 or mix it thoroughly with a proportion of clay 

 or marl before he spreads it over the surface 

 of the peat. Where limestone is to be obtain- 

 ed in the immediate neighbourhood, and other 

 fuel is not to be readily procured, peat may be 

 employed in many cases in the process of 

 lime-burning without much difficulty, it chiefly 

 reci uiring that the peat should be thoroughly 

 dried previous to its being used. For a first 

 crop on the thus so far reclaimed peat soils, I 

 have found no other crop equal to potatoes. 

 These are best planted in ridges; the horse 

 hoe-plough can then be easily kept at work, 

 which not only considerably promotes the de- 

 composition of the peat, by facilitating the in- 

 troduction of the moisture and gases of the at- 

 mosphere, but this very operation adds very 

 materially to the vigour and produce of this 

 valuable root, than which no other plant more 

 delights in fresh soils, such as that produced 

 by well-drained, fresh earth-dressed peaty lands. 



It is well to avoid for a year or two all at- 

 tempts to produce grain crops on land like that 

 I am describing. The course of cropping 

 which the farmer will almost always find the 

 most profitable, is to follow the potatoes with 



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