218 
I Assembly 
should be raised in the fall, spread in the barn yard, or placed in heaps 
and mixed with animal matter and lime. Placed under these circum- 
stances it is exposed to the frost and the atmospheric agents, which pro- 
duce in it incipient chemical changes necessary to convert it into the 
nutriment of plants. This is especially the case when lime is added to 
it, which forms a soluble salt, the geate of lime^ with a portion of the 
vegetable matter. In the spring it is prepared for removal to the field, 
and may be spread upon the meadow for grass, or it may be used as a 
manure for corn, potatoes, &c. It will not answer a good purpose when 
employed without due preparation, especially when it is spread on mea- 
dows for grass; it then becomes dry, is insoluble, and of course unfitted 
for the nourishment of vegetables. The same remarks might be appli- 
ed to the preparation of peat as are recommended under the head of 
preparation of the marly clays. 
2d. Peat, as is w^ell known, answers a good purpose for fuel, and un- 
doubtedly ranks next to coal for sustaining for a long time a high tem- 
perature. There is no substance which would remove so much suffer- 
ing among the poor as the general introduction of this substance for 
fuel in our larger towns and cities. Its abundance and cheapness re- 
commend it to the attention of the public, and if measures could be 
devised to bring it into use in this State, many important results would 
follow. 
3d. Peat furnishes an abundance of carburetted hydrogen, and hence 
may be employed for producing gas light. Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger, 
of New-York, has made known to the American public the experiments 
of Merle, a director of a gas light company in France. The advanta- 
ges of peat for the production of gas are as follows: 1st. It is less ex- 
pensive than gas from coal, oil or resin. 2d. The produce is nearly as 
much as from those substances. 3d. The gas is quite harmless and in- 
offensive, and has, in respect to healthfulness, great advantages over 
some of the other kinds of gas. 
4th. After it has been employed for gas it may be used for fuel, and 
it is equal to any charcoal. 
According to Merle, one thousand kilogrammes of peat, when distill- 
ed like coal for two hours, yeilds eight thousand cubic feet of gas, which 
has rather a weak illuminating power, and contains much carbon, and 
which, though purified by water, loses a great deal more of its strength; 
but if the same is distilled for three-fourths of an hour, only five thou- 
