THE planter's GUIDE. 



139 



well calculated to stimulate, and add vegetable matter to 

 the loamy soil. 



But the peat compost, for general application to all 

 soils, I have found the most extensively useful of the 

 whole, if prepared with a third part of animal manure or 

 fresh farm-yard dung, according to the fermenting process 

 discovered by the late Lord Meadowbank, whose memory 

 will be immortal with both the husbandman and the 

 arboriculturist. For thin gravelly soil, where a consider- 

 able quantity of carbonaceous matter is required to supply 

 its wants, this compost, if properly made, will be found 

 even preferable to ordinary animal manure, as containing 

 much more carbon and continuing its action longer on the 

 ground. Even when prepared with quicklime only 

 recently burnt and slacked, that is, hydrate of lime — one 

 fifth part of lime to four-fifths of peat — it is extremely 

 valuable from its loose and friable properties, and the fine 

 state of comminution to which it may be readily brought. 

 Quicklime when it becomes mild operates in the same 

 way as chalk, but in the act of becoming mild it has the 

 power of preparing soluble out of insoluble matter. 

 Hence its great efiect on peat, and on all soils containing 

 an excess of vegetable insoluble matter. But for peat 

 compost of either species to operate fully in preparing 

 the soil for the fibrous roots of plants, it should be mixed 

 in the ground for at least a twelvemonth before the trees 

 are removed; so that, on opening the pits for the second 

 time, it shall have nearly disappeared, in consequence of 

 its complete and perfect incorporation with the soil. 



This last method of decomposing peat we owe to a 

 very ingenious and scientific nobleman, the Earl of Dun- 

 donald, whose memory will also be long held in grateful 

 remembrance by his countrymen. This distinguished 

 chemist was the first writer who, nearly half a century 



