30 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



lead to the use of certain kinds of peat land at the expense of other 

 types of farming which would be less liable to failure or to dangerous 

 limitations. The desire for rapid returns may not in a few instances 

 encourage the landholder to ignore the wise rule of crop adaptation 

 through crop rotation with suitable varieties; he may fail to heed 

 the decreases in yield which follow a lack of knowledge of the 

 different peat materials and their characteristics, especially the 

 changes in conditions, such as the water table whose influence 

 requires close and continuous study. 



It would be well,, therefore, to consider what is the position of 

 Massachusetts in this matter of peat land utilization and what work 

 should be done towards obtaining a fair degree of success in local 

 areas with peat lands differing in material and in field conditions. 



Several important elements enter into the problem under con- 

 sideration, which for convenience are named (1) the influence of 

 vegetation; (2) the influence of climate; and (3) the geological 

 and topographic factors. 



I. The influence of vegetation. 



The native vegetation which covers the peat lands of today 

 presents to the careful observer unmistakable features in regard 

 to the predominating plant associations forming peat materials and 

 the diversity of habitats which they reflect. Their various growth 

 forms are correlated in the main with variations in the ground 

 water table and they represent distinct effects in the method of 

 building up strata of peat. Changes in the character of the indige- 

 nous vegetation of peat lands are as a general rule very slow under 

 ordinary circumstances. This fact is so striking that the appear- 

 ance of certain bog plants should serve the intelligent farmer not 

 only as an index to environmental conditions and their products 

 but also as a guide in the selection of his farm practice. 



It is well known, however, that commonly the variations in peat 

 materials over the surface area, and the nature of the sub-surface 

 materials are rarely if ever examined in any detail, and are often 

 entirely omitted from observation. Whether or not peat materials 

 consist of layers of vegetable debris easily penetrated by roots of 

 crop plants, by water and air so that the}^ will weather, shrink and 

 yet drain readily, or whether root penetration is limited b^^ beds of 

 material unlike in composition and degree of disintegration, such 



