Mosses and Peat 



land before only worth IDS. per acre was changed into 

 good farmlands worth .5 per acre. 4 Strange to say, 

 when one refers to Fruh's splendid and recent mono- 

 graph (1904) on the Swiss moorlands and peat mosses, 3 

 one discovers there that what little is being done in 

 scientific Switzerland seems to be by essentially the same 

 methods as were employed by our forefathers in 1812. 



Burning, liming, and manuring are the usual methods ; 

 but such artificials as Thomas slag, phosphates, or potash 

 salts are also used. Dr. Fruh himself says, " They show 

 even to-day on the whole the same crops and the same 

 simple culture as existed one or two hundred years 

 ago." The usual crops are potatoes, kohlrabi, carrots, 

 oats, rye, wheat (spelt), peas, beans, and rape. 



In the North-Eastern United States, a kind of cran- 

 berry (Vaccinium macrocarpum) is said to be cultivated 

 on moorlands. Certain lands in New Jersey are rented 

 at from 8 to 13 dollars per acre for this unusual crop, 

 which has also been tried in North Germany. Accord- 

 ing to Shaler, 5 there are some 100,000 acres of suitable 

 cranberry land in the United States. 



So far as this country is concerned, one may perhaps 

 say that all heather moorland up to a certain altitude 

 (possibly two-thirds of the height of the highest hills in 

 the neighbourhood) might be at once changed into forests 

 by draining, planting with Scotch fir and other trees, and 

 excluding sheep and deer. The author does not think 

 that this is seriously denied by any scientific authority 

 on such subjects. 



It is sometimes questioned whether it will pay to 

 undertake such reafforestation, but the real reason which 

 prevents anything being done seems to be the existence 

 of grouse, and the fact that the forests would not benefit 

 the present owners of the moors, who would be dead 

 before they paid for their plantation. 



77 



