394 



On the Improvement of Peat Soils. 



be expected to vegetate with even moderate vigour in soils such 

 as these, composed as they are often of merely a mass of hard 

 inert vegetable matters, saturated with a weak solution of green 

 vitriol — if any kind of plantations would progress, it would be 

 the alder, the willow tribe, or the hardy birch-trees, tenacious of 

 life, which can endure more moisture and subsist on poorer soils 

 than most other plants. After the slightest consideration we 

 should hardly decide upon placing on such swamps trees which 

 delight in dry upland slopes, as the Scotch fir and the larch ; 

 yet we can hardly traverse a single bne of railway, driven as their 

 constructors have too often been to take for their line of country 

 the most trembling, dangerous bogs, the most wwthless heaths, 

 without being struck with the ludicrous appearances of bright 

 yellow- topped larches and ragged sickly-looking Scotch firs, 

 soaking in bog-water — and that too not in mere patches, but over 

 hundreds of acres. I do not confine these observations to the 

 north of England — to Lancashire and Yorkshire — but the remark 

 applies to many of the southern counties : for instance, by the 

 road-side between Wareham and Poole, in Dorsetshire ; may be 

 seen similar wet peaty heath plantations of Scotch firs. 



The peat soils with which I have had the chief experience 

 have been either those on upland slopes or in the hollows of low 

 grounds, such as near the rivers Kennett and Itchen, and in all 

 cases placed in situations where it was possible to drain them by 

 open or under-drains previous to commencing ulterior proceed- 

 ings. The under-drainage of peats is usually, especially on high 

 moorish grounds, conducted on very erroneous principles, and 

 with little regard to the after-effects to be produced by it on the 

 peat. The first error to be carefully avoided is placing the drains 

 too near the surface. I have invariably found in deep peats that, 

 where the drain cannot be placed beneath the peat, they should 

 be constructed at least at a depth of from 4 to 6 feet or even 

 more ; and this is not adding materially to the expense, for the 

 peat-owner will find that one drain at the depth of 5 or 6 feet will 

 produce more powerful and far more permanent good effects than 

 three drains at a depth of 3 feet. The good results of depth in 

 peat-land drainage will be found by the farmer years after the 

 soil is reclaimed — for, as the peat is dried and its upper portion 

 decomposed and rendered solid by cultivation, the mass of peat 

 gradually and very materially sinks, and this too in deep peats for 

 a lengthened period. And as this contraction is chiefly confined 

 to the upper portion of the peat, the result is that the improving 

 soil of the surface gradually approaches the drains, and that in 

 some varieties of the softer kinds of peat to a very injurious 

 extent. Such too is the porous, spongy nature of most peat soils, 

 that it is difficult to remove entirely the water from those portions 



