THE FORMATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF MASSA- 

 CHUSETTS PEAT LANDS AND SOME OF THEIR 



USES. 



By Dr. Alfred P. Dachnowski, Washington, D. C. 



Delivered before the Society, January 27, 1917. 

 Illustrated by means of lantern slides and samples of peat material. 



Reference to any good topographic map of Massachusetts will 

 show a surprisingly large number of unimproved peat lands favor- 

 ably located to various important market centers and to the chief 

 lines of transportation radiating from Boston. In no state of the 

 Union is the development of peat land resources for their food yield- 

 ing value of greater importance than in Massachusetts, where agri- 

 culture in the last 5 years has seen a great change and in the further 

 growth of which are interested the commercial and industrial pros- 

 perity of over 4,000,000 people. 



The passage of legislation by the State Board of Health for the 

 drainage of some of these peat lands and the establishment of a 

 provision to extend the activities of the drainage engineers to aid 

 in the preparation of peat lands for agricultural and other purposes 

 constitutes a notable recognition of agriculture in a new direction. 

 Not only does this imply the harmonious working together for ends 

 of a common good, but more primarily the realization that the great 

 peat land areas can be made a valuable resource to the state only 

 through well planned measures controlled by State Departments 

 working in cooperation. 



Today the great increase in population demands the use of peat 

 lands for the growth of crops and for various industrial purposes. 

 But the very factors, however, which have brought about this great 

 accumulation of vegetable material, and which constitutes a gain in 

 land as against the loss upon mineral upland by erosion and leach- 

 ing, may also introduce with them certain possible sources of failure. 

 The great profits obtainable from the cultivation of truck crops may 



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