342 



PEAT IN NEW-YORK 



grounds is not yet fully appreciated ; but when this 

 combustible shall come into use, as it soon will, 

 owners of those peat-lands which are convenient 

 to a market must realize a large amount ; and it 

 should be remembered that these grounds, when 

 dug once, are not exhausted like a coal-mine, but in 

 a few years, if properly managed, will be renovated, 

 and afford a new supply. A peat meadow, with a 

 thickness of only three feet, will give more than 

 1000 cords per acre. This combustible may be 

 furnished at so low a rate that the poor may have 

 an abundance of fuel. The odour of peat is un- 

 pleasant to some persons, but not more so than 

 that of bituminous coal. Peat is usually cut out 

 in pieces like bricks, by a kind of spade with a 

 raised edge on one side, and is then dried like un- 

 baked bricks, and afterward stacked or housed for 

 use." 



Every swamp either contains peat, or a vast 

 amount of vegetable matter which may be usefully 

 employed in agriculture. It may also be employed 

 for producing gaslight, as in France. Peat is often 

 used for manure, after rotting it with lime in the 

 barnyard or compost heap. Peat is not confined to 

 fresh-water lakes and marshes, but also abounds in 

 those which are salt. Mather estimates that the 

 first geological district of New- York contains at 

 least 3,000,000 cords of peat, some of which has as 

 great a specific gravity as bituminous coal, and is 

 nearly or quite as valuable for fuel. 



" Perhaps it would be saying too much," says 

 Prof. Emmons, " to assert that peat is more valua- 

 ble than coal ; but when we consider that it con- 

 tains a gaseous matter equal in illuminating power 

 to oil or coal gas, that its production is equally 

 cheap, and, in addition to this, that it is a valuable 

 manure if properly prepared, its real and intrinsic 

 worth cannot fall far short of the poorer kinds of 

 coal There is one consideration which commends 



