J. E. TESCHEMACHER'S ADDRESS. 621 



of many crops. The chemist's advice is often followed to 

 neutralize these acids by lime or by other alkalies, potash or 

 soda salts if cheap and at hand, or, when put in the hog pen, 

 by the ammonia from the excrement. Now this neutraliza- 

 tion, which in other words is the making of the acids inert or 

 no longer acid and injurious by these additions, does not get 

 rid of them ; they are taken into the soil in this neutralized 

 state, and are either washed out by rain in this state, combined 

 with the neutralizers, or, if the growing crops use up the neu- 

 tralizing alkalies, the acids appear again and must again be 

 neutralized. 



Now these acids are generally soluble in water ; the best way 

 therefore to treat the peat muck is to wash it as well as can be 

 done. It seems to me that the best plan would be, where there 

 is no fall of land, to drain such a peat bog by cutting a trench 

 through the middle and allowing a natural washing by rain, to 

 cart it on to a piece of land where there L a gentle fall, lay it 

 out in layers or winrows with gutters between, so as to drain 

 away the water impregnated with the acids, and let it be ex- 

 posed to the rains of spring and autumn. If properly managed 

 one season would thus sweeten it, and leave a residue of nearly 

 pure charcoal fit for incorporation with the manure heap and 

 requiring no neutralization. I leave out of question the idea of 

 decomposing and rotting this muck by admixture with hot lime 

 or any other substance ; it is wanted in its present state of a 

 carbonaceous mass, only sweetened as I call it and as you will 

 better understand it, by washing out and getting rid of these 

 injurious acids forever. 



In justice to science I must again remark that by charcoal in 

 this address is not meant pure scientific charcoal, but merely 

 such substances arising from decompositions of organic matter, 

 whether of animal or of vegetable origin, as absorb the valuable 

 portion of manure. The more intimately this sweetened muck 

 is incorporated with manure the better ; although to this there 

 is this limit, the manure must not be turned over again and 

 again for the purpose of this incorporation, for by so doing the 

 valuable parts are lost in the atmosphere. This is a great 

 error with those who use guano ; they insist that it is too 



