1104 



The Improvement of Peaty Soils. [Mar., 



THE IMPROVEMENT OF PEATY 

 SOILS. 



PART I.— THE TRUE PEATS. 



E. J. Russell, D.Sc, F.R.S., 

 Director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station. 



There are three types of peat soils in England, differing 

 markedly from one another, and presenting entirely different 

 possibmcies of improvement. They are : — 



(1) Fen soils, found in the eastern counties: Cambridge, the 

 Isle of Ely, Norfolk, Huntingdon, &c. 



(2) Low-lying peat soils, found in Lincolnshire and in the 

 west, such as the Carr soils of Lincolnshire, Nottingham- 

 shire, the peats of Chat Moss, near Manchester, and other 

 Cheshire mosses. 



(3) High-lying peat, found in the west and north, e.g., Dart- 

 moor, the Pennine chain and its outliers, Hambledon, &c. 



The fen soils are distinguished by the fact that they are not 

 strongly acid, often indeed not acid at all; they are very tract- 

 able and are practically all in cultivation. Drainage is the chief 

 requisite ; when this is done the land becomes very fertile. There 

 is little now left for the improver to do, excepting after a disaster 

 like the breaking of a bank by the Little Ouse in the Southery 

 Fen, Feltwell, on 3rd January, 1918, when 20,000 acres were 

 badly damaged. A few wastes still survive. One of these occurs 

 in Wood Walton Fen. near Ramsay St. Mary's, Hunts. Part of 

 the fen is deliberately kept as a sanctuary for wild life. The 

 rest, however, is agricultural land, but as the lower part is 

 liable to flood it has been left uncultivated and is now a dense 

 thicket of birch and willow ; some had been cleared by a previous 

 tenant but was allowed to become derelict and covered with 

 couch, and in places by rushes. The management of the land 

 is now in the hands of Mr. A. Lancaster Smith, and his reclama- 

 tion methods are described in Country Life.* Briefly the 

 method is to raise the banks so as to keep out flood water, to 

 break up the land with tractors, and then to grow potatoes, buck- 

 wheat, &c. Fen soils benefit by additions of clay but not of 

 sand ; they do not as a rule respond to lime — though this par- 

 ticular district is an exception — the most striking effects are 

 produced bv superphosphate, but not by basic slag. Some of 



° Country Life, 7th September, 1917, p. 187, and 21st June, 1919, p. 766. 



