44 



Improvement of Peat Lands. 



Vol. XL 



The hint has not been altogether lost upon 

 Bome of the farmers in the vicinity, and 

 some of them are preparing to make an ap- 

 plication of charcoal upon their lands; the 

 result of which, when fully ascertained, I 

 shall be happy to communicate to the public, 

 especially if the facts above stated succeed 

 in attracting the attention of agriculturists. 

 Lewis Vail. 

 Speedwell, Morris Co., N. J., July 26th, 1846. 



Improvement of Peat Lands. 



The improvement or redemption of peat 

 lands, essentially concerns the farmers of 

 the United States, as, in many parts of the 

 country there are extensive tracts of peat 

 land, now producing nothing valuable, which 

 might be made eminently productive, as ad- 

 vantageously to the health of their vicinity 

 as to pecuniary profit. Upon a small scale 

 great improvements have already been made 

 in this way, in several parts of New Eng- 

 land, within my own knowledge, with a 

 skill, intelligence, and success, highly hon- 

 ourable to those persons who have accom- 

 plished them. 



One of the greatest enterprises of this 

 kind probably ever undertaken by individual 

 effort, was that of Lord Karnes, sixty or 

 seventy years since, at Blair Drummond, in 

 the neighbourhood of Stirling. This was 

 not an improvement of the peat soil, but an 

 actual removal of it. Underlaying the peat 

 was a bed of deep and rich alluvion. From 

 the walls of peat, or the cuttings which ap- 

 pear at the sides or bounds of this improve- 

 ment, — for, though an immense body was 

 taken away, an extensive tract is still to be 

 found, — the depth of peat removed, as it ap- 

 peared to me, must have been six feet or 

 more. It is stated to have been in some 

 places full sixteen feet. It was necessary 

 to obtain a command of water sufficient to 

 carry the turf into the river Forth. A wheel 

 twenty-eight feet in diameter, and eight 

 feet wide, was employed to raise the water, 

 which it did at the rate of six and a half 

 tons per minute. The water thus raised 

 was directed into channels cut in the moss, 

 along the sides of which men were stationed, 

 cutting the moss into pieces, and tumbling 

 it into the current of water, by which it was 

 floated into the river, and thence much of it 

 into the sea. 



This was really a vast undertaking. VVhe^ 

 ther the expenses were met by the advan- 

 tages gained, I am not able to say; but a 

 large tract of most excellent land was un- 

 covered and brought into cultivation, and 

 which, as I had the pleasure of witnessing. 



now yields as good crops as are ordinarily 

 grown in the country. 



Enterprises of this nature must, of course, 

 be rare, and in but few circumstances prac- 

 ticable ; but such a work does infinite hon- 

 our to the boldness which conceived, and the 

 perseverance and labour which executed it. 

 The interesting and extremely picturesque 

 neighbourhood of Stirling is all classic 

 ground, made memorable by acts of prowess 

 and heroism in the civil wars which pre- 

 vailed here, and by dreadful and bloody af- 

 frays. In looking at this magnificent im- 

 provement of Lord Kames, in comparison 

 With these memorials of revenge and hate, 

 of misery and murder — for aggressive war 

 deserves no milder name — I could not help 

 feeling how infinitely higher is the honour 

 of subduing the earth, that it may be ren- 

 dered more fruitful, and serve the purposes 

 of life and happiness, than any of the tri- 

 umphs of military glory, any of the bloody 

 conquests of revenge and unbridled ambi- 

 tion. These serve no other purpose than 

 that of scattering abroad agony and desola- 

 tion ; glutting the most hateful passions of a 

 depraved nature; and marking their pro* 

 gress, not by the displays of genius and 

 skill, and the brilliant and rich fruits of civ- 

 ilization and humanity, but by laying waste 

 the improvements and refinements of sci- 

 ence and art, and pouring out everywhere a 

 turbid flood of unmitigated wretchedness and 

 death. 



In England, Ireland, and Scotland, vast 

 amounts of peat land have been subdued and 

 redeemed, and, from being wholly waste and 

 unproductive, are converted into well-tilled 

 and fruitful fields. Thousands and tens of 

 thousands of acres have been recovered in 

 England ; and in Ireland, improvements of 

 this nature are in progress on a most exten- 

 sive scale. The single territory of Glene- 

 aske, near Ballina, consisting almost wholly 

 of peat bog, and which was to me the object 

 of a most interesting visit, embraces about 

 3,500 Irish acres, or upwards of 5,600 Eng- 

 lish acres.* This, a public-spirited compa- 

 ny, called the Waste Land Improvement 

 Company, and possessing an ample capital, 

 have undertaken to reclaim and cultivate, 

 and have already made a considerable pro- 

 gress. There is, indeed, in Ireland, am.ple 

 scope for this species of improvement, as the 

 area of peat bog is estimated at no less than 

 2,833,000 acres, almost the whole of which 

 is deemed capable of being redeemed, and 

 brought into productive cultivation. 



I know nothing in the United States re- 

 sembling the bog land of Ireland and Eng- 



An Irish is to an English acre as 121 to 196. 



