194 REPORT OF THE 



this purpose by writers on scientific agriculture, but as it is not 

 my intention here to enlarge upon this subject, I only allude 

 to two. 



First of all, the peat or muck should be thrown out and left 

 where it can be exposed to the process of alternate soaking 



a 



and drying, and if possible also to the action of frost. 



Secondly, it may be mixed with lime, which, as an alkaline 

 agent, will neutralize the acidity, and at the same time facili- 

 tate decomposition. When thus mixed, it is much more prompt- 

 ly prepared for use. The lime for this purpose has not to be 

 quarried from a distant ledge and burned in a kiln. Nature has 

 placed it in the form of marl, in immediate juxtaposition with 

 the peat which needs its agency. Indeed the farmer can in 

 many cases load his cart with the mixed deposits without even 

 moving his team from their tracks I hardly know a more 

 striking adaptation of natural means for the accomplishment of 

 a necessary object. The porous nature of our soils suffers 

 their soluble constituents to be carried away to the lower 

 levels, where peat and marl are accumulating, and where the 

 growths of ages unknown, have been adding a thousand fold to 

 the nutritive elements brought down from the soils of the con- 

 tiguous hill slopes. These depositories of agricultural force, a 

 good economy will not fail to appreciate and apply to the recu- 

 peration of declining. wheat lands. 



While, however, the application of peat as a fertilizer to the 

 soil is its most obvious use in a purely agricultural region, it 

 cannot bo said that this is its principal, or even its most im- 

 portant application. Though in a country like our own, covered 

 with primitive forests, the value of peat as a fuel is almost un- 

 known, the amount consumed in older countries is truly enor- 

 mous. The bogs of Ireland are estimated to occupy 2,830,000 

 acres. Two million acres, at an average depth of nine leet, 

 assuming peat to be but one-sixth the value of coal, will furnish 

 an am >uut of fuel equal to 470,000,000 ions of coal, worth thir- 

 teen hundred millions of dollars. For the purposes of ordinary 

 fuel, the raw peat is prepared by subjecting it between cloths, 



