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XXXIV. — On the Improvement of Peat Soils. Prize Essay. 

 By CuTHBERT W. Johnson^ Barrister- at- Law. 



The improvement of peat soils" now proposed as a question 

 for investigation by our society is one of very considerable im- 

 portance to agriculture. 



It involves not only the permanent improvement of large estates, 

 but these peat soils include a very large proportion of several 

 counties of the United Kingdom. 



In this essay I feel the advantage of confining my observations 

 and the details of my experimental researches to those peat soils 

 whose profitable improvement is attended with the greater obstacles 

 — to those deep peat mosses, or bogs, which are naturally the most 

 difficult to bring into cultivation. These often extend to a depth 

 of many feet, contain but little earth, are usually tolerably level, 

 and consist of a mass of light vegetable fibres. This peat, even 

 in the midst of summer, is commonly saturated with water ; at 

 other periods semifluid, and very often a trembling dangerous 

 quagmire. Its soil, if I may call it such, is usually of a dark 

 brown, changing to a blackish colour when thoroughly dried by 

 a gentle heat. 



In this state the peat is easily inflammable, is commonly used 

 for fuel, and has been occasionally employed by the gas-manufac- 

 turer, the lime-burner, the charcoal -maker, and even the iron- 

 smelter. 



The directions which I am enabled to give, and the suggestions 

 I venture to offer, are of necessity general in their nature. It is 

 in vain to hope that any can be given which will not require 

 modifications according to the many circumstances under which 

 the possessor of the bogs is placed. 



Peat soils abound in almost all those situations where stagnant 

 waters are for a long-continued period allowed to rest, and where 

 the vegetable matters produced and very slowly decaying on the 

 surface are not carried off. 



The common masses of peat existing on the earth's surface in 

 England, with which I have had most experience, are the pro- 

 ducts of the decay of the mosses, common heath-plants, coarse 

 grasses, and the sedges which often accompany them. But the 

 varieties of peat are numerous, according to their age and situ- 

 ation. There are some of the peats which are found beneath the 

 soil, in the lower portions of the valley of the Thames, which 

 are evidently the remains of considerable masses of underwood, 

 and contain sulphate of iron. Many others, dispersed over the 

 coast of Essex and in Ireland, abound with the remains of large 

 forest-trees, and were most probably produced by some great con- 

 vulsion of the earth in a distant period. In the southern counties, 



