286 DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 



by persons who, having no knowledge of the subject, did 

 not leave any of the vegetable surface, but levelled quite to 

 the gravel, the result at present being that the place is quite 

 bare. The practice of planting peat and growing it as a 

 crop is therefore already well known to many persons ; 

 and the careful landlord who insisted on pieces being left 

 behind, has left for his successors a valuable field of fuel in 

 a place where nothing else can grow, whilst the careless one 

 close to him has rendered the land a desert. Now this is 

 the very thing that I wish first to call attention to. 



It is at present the opinion of many that the only thing 

 to be done with peat when it cannot be economically 

 compressed, is to throw it or have it washed away, if not 

 burnt away, so as to make land for richer crops. In places 

 where richer crops will grow, this may be right ; but there 

 may be some of even these places where it would be wise 

 to cultivate certain portions for fuel. The use of coal will 

 probably always be more expensive than the use of peat in 

 many parts of Scotland and of Ireland, if not of England ; 

 and the power of growing fuel on land that will grow 

 nothing else well, is a great and valuable power. Syste- 

 matic peat-cuttings have been common enough ; but 

 systematic peat-growing has been rare, and the circum- 

 stances best suited have not been studied. 



The ash of peat varies, it is said by Websky (Jahresbericht 

 uber die Fortschritte der Cheraie, vol. xvii. p. 804), from 

 o # 5 to 50 per cent. I know of no such wide numbers 

 myself, and shall be inclined to keep to the amount found 

 at Loch Etive, viz. 6 to 10 per cent, calculated on the dry 

 matter, and \'% to 2 on the wet peat. The ash is chiefly 

 siliceous ; after silica, the earths are in most abundance ; 

 but alkalies and phosphates are in very small quantities. 



Fuller analysis will follow. 



For the growth of a peat-bog it is required, from the 

 foregoing, that the water and plants should break up rocks 



