8 BULLETIN 802, r. S. DEPAET]ME:JfT OF AGEICULTUKB. 



not onlr to increased procUiction, but also to the larger range of 

 crop plants which is so essential to a sound and secure foundation of 

 peat-land agriculture. 



In European countries the cultivation of the better grade of cereals 

 is carried on upon peat deposits covered with a layer of sand (the 

 "Cunrau *' or " Rimpau " method, in vogue since 1862) and upon peat 

 areas from which most of the organic material has been removed. 

 The practicability of combining the agricultural and commer- 

 cial utilization of a peat deposit for the production of fuel and food 

 is no longer a questionable procedure. The problem has been well 

 solved in Holland, where certain types of material are removed 

 partly on account of their value for manufacturing purposes ; largely, 

 however, because the mineral subsoil has an equally, if not greater, 

 value for the production of garden truck and for staple crops. Of 

 the two methods of developing peat land the practice of sanding 

 peat deposits has not always proved satisfactory. European experi- 

 ence seems to show that the amount of injury from diseases is very 

 smair compared with losses in jdelcl from causes due to the selection 

 of peat areas which contained plant remains with an unfavorable 

 decay capacity or in which there api^eared in the sand cover, as time 

 went on, relatively injurious compounds from the underlying poorly 

 aerated organic and mineral subsoils. It is, indeed, not unlikely 

 that similar conditions are the cause of the greatly lessened yield 

 in the cranberry crop and other plant industries reported from some 

 deposits in this comitry. 



For reasons such as these, the writer feels justified in the opinion 

 that a preliminary-survey- method based upon qualitative as well as 

 quantitative differences of peat materials, which determines their 

 serial position in the profile structure of a deposit and their depth 

 relation and condition of disintegration and which examines the 

 character of the underlying mineral substratum and the nature 

 of its ground water, would offer data which might be of general 

 interest to variou.s lines of peat utilization and would permit an esti- 

 mate of the probable difficulties or tendencies making for failure. 

 It would prove a more reliable means of arriving at the practical 

 value of peat lands for an undertaking that faces agricultural or in- 

 dustrial utilization, or a combination of both, and it would avoid 

 the discrediting of interests which desire to utilize peat materials for 

 technical and commercial purposes, for bacterial inoculation, as a 

 filler with other fertilizer substances, as a stock-feed ingredient, as 

 fiber, and in other specific ways. It has been the experience in 

 Europe, and undoubtedly in this country as well, that, no matter 

 how excellent the results for a time, certain field conditions qualify 

 the manner and methods of utilization, while the use of some types 

 of peat material introduces sources of failure. Prudence is the more 



