396 



On the Improvement of Peat Soils. 



it abounds with earthy matters), the possessors of the peat-soil 

 would require hardly anything else for their improvement. The 

 steam-engine^ I am convinced, has not yet been employed in the 

 service of the farmer to one-half the extent to which it is capable. 

 Its gigantic powers have hitherto been confined to draining the 

 land, but little has been done with it in irrigation ; and yet, when 

 the landowner remembers how laboriously even by manual labour 

 this is done in Oriental countries, and that in the fens of Lincoln- 

 shire one eighty-horse-power steam-engine raises 7 feet high 

 51,230 tons of water every eight hours, by the combustion of only 

 2 J chaldrons of coals ; and that, allowing 150 tons per acre, this 

 mass of water is sufficient to irrigate more than 340 acres of land ; 

 — when, T repeat, the landowner is reminded of these gigantic 

 powers, he will feel convinced of the probable certainty that 

 more yet remains to be done in the permanent improvement of the 

 soil by the use of the steam-engine than many persons have suffi- 

 cient leisure to examine or the courage to attempt. 



The drainage being effected, the next important object is to 

 furnish the soil with a sufficient quantity of earthy matter to sup- 

 port vegetation, and this may be done in several ways : that by 

 paring and burning, so common in various parts of Cambridge- 

 shire and Lincolnshire, I consider the worst of all modes ; for it 

 merely furnishes the soil by an expensively rapid progress with 

 the freed earths of the peat, which its gradual decomposition would 

 by other modes more profitably and steadily effect. 



The first operation after the water has been drained off is to 

 break up as deeply as possible, by the common and the subsoil- 

 ploughs, the surface of the peat; and then, if good well-burnt 

 lime can be procured^ there is no earthy addition so rapid and so 

 powerful in dissolving and rendering pliable the peat as this. A 

 few ploughings, assisting the combined operations of the atmo- 

 sphere and the lime, will in a few weeks bring the soil into such a 

 state as to enable it to bear a first crop. The quantity of lime 

 should be about 250 or 300 bushels per acre ; but the quantity 

 of necessity must vary with the readiness with which the lime is 

 procurable ; where it is very expensive the cultivator is obliged 

 either to reduce the quantity or mix it thoroughly with a propor- 

 tion of clay or marl before he spreads it over the surface of the 

 peat. Where limestone is to be obtained in the immediate 

 neighbourhood, and other fuel is not to be readily procured, peat 

 may be employed in many cases in the process of lime-burning 

 without much difficulty, it chiefly requiring that the peat should 

 be thoroughly dried previous to its being used. For a first crop 

 on the thus so far reclaimed peat -soils I have found no other crop 

 equal to potatoes. These are best planted in ridges : the horse 

 hoe-plough can then be easily kept at work, which not only con- 



