PEAT AND ITS USES 35 



products, and the term no more describes a definite 

 unit compound or mixture than does the term " coal" 

 in the mineral kingdom, or the terms "horse," 

 " dog," " man," or what not in the animal kingdom. 

 As will be seen in the later pages of the book, it 

 would not be possible for the makers of bacterized 

 peat to copy the immortal recipe of Mrs. Beeton, 

 beginning, " Take a hare," and to start off an account 

 of their manufacturing process with the words, 

 " Take a ton of peat." The exact character of any 

 peat that is to be used has carefully to be studied 

 and tested to discover whether or not it will give 

 satisfactory results when converted into humogen. 



Generally one may describe peat as disintegrating 

 vegetable matter. It may be coarsely fibrous and 

 matted, and contain plainly recognizable in its sub- 

 stance the roots, rhizomes, and aerial parts of plants. 

 Or it may be highly compact; the fibrous con- 

 stituents of it may have already decomposed and the 

 great portion of it may consist of disintegrating 

 leaves and woody parts of trees and shrubs. These 

 may be regarded roughly as the limiting substances 

 in one direction, and the other of the various agglo- 

 merations that may be described as peat ; but both 

 in chemical and mechanical properties there are 

 enormous differences. One has only to consider the 

 conditions in which the peat has been laid down to 

 realize that this is inevitable. Imagine the vastly 

 differing matter that is waterborne by various 

 streams to be deposited in the rankly growing vege- 

 tation of the forming peat bog. Bear in mind the 

 dust carried by the air, much of which has inevitably 



