192 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — No doubt this would be a valuable article for fuel 

 whenever coal aud wood was dear enough to induce people to dig it, but 

 it would not be necessary for New Yorkers to g'o to Vermont for peat, as 

 there were large deposits of it in New Jersey. 



Prof. Mapes said it had been used for a long time for fuel about Morris- 

 town, and Mr. M. E. Thompson said that it was very abundant in Essex 

 county, New Jersey. 



Mr. Solon Eobinson. — This kind of article has been in nse for the last 30 

 years in Connecticut without creating any particular excitement. There is 

 enough within three miles of the city of Brooklyn to last the people of that 

 city for ten years. 



Mr. Fuller said yes, a hundred years. Mr. Bergen said that he had 

 always lived in Brooklyn, and did not know of any such great peat beds, 

 and wanted to know where they were. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Fuller as- 

 sured him that there were deposits forty feet deep on the top of the ridge 

 near the reservoir, and in several other places. Mr. Bergen doubted 

 whether it would be profitable to dig it for fuel or manure where coal can 

 be had, and where farmers can get city stable manure at low rates. 



The Secretary said that Mr. Richard Bacon had found large quanties of 

 the article near his residence at Simsbury, Conn. Mr. Bacon had brought 

 large quantities of the article to New York, but while the price of coal 

 was so reasonable he had not been able to introduce it. 



Prof. Mapes said that its use for manure would always depend upon lo- 

 cality, and the quality of the article called peat. That most suitable for 

 fuel is a vegetable substance in a state of growth that will reproduce 

 itself; but people are in the habit of calling almost all kinds of swamp 

 muck by the name of peat. The substance that is deposited as sediment 

 by rivers, or the salt marsh muck, makes good manure when properly pre- 

 pared, but it wont't bear long transportation. The most valuable is that 

 in deposits washed down from adjacent high lands, and least valuable that 

 of the salt marsh. The true peat is so hard to decompose that it cannot be 

 used with much profit as manure, and when burned, as it has been some- 

 times, to reduce it to a usable form, the ashes are found to be very light 

 and of not much value. " 



If the peat is properly decomposed with the salt and lime mixture it 

 makes an excellent manure. The floor under a shed should be sloped and 

 made dish form; on this floor is placed the manure from the stable, on this 

 seventeen times the bulk of muck; then another layer of stable manure, 

 and again seventeen times its bulk of muck, and so alternate until you get 

 the shed nearly full; the drainage is pumped up twice a week and distri- 

 buted over the whole bed; this is conveniently done with a hose; if there is 

 no drainage, then water is used the first time, I also dig a trench behind 

 the cattle sheds, in which I place the decomposed muck; into this the urine 

 from the cattle soaks ; this, after ten days, is also placed upon the heap, 

 and then seventeen times its bulk of muck. 



This makes a capital divider of the soil, and when used in the drill when 

 planting potatoes, it will be found very desirable. 



