(360 
THE TEOPICAL AaRICULTURIST. [Oct. 1, 1903. 
CEYLON PEAT DEPOSITS AND THEIR 
POSSIBILITIES. 
The Peat Deposits of the island are as 
yet an unrealised asset ; and chiefly, we fancy, 
from want of knowledge how other nations 
have handled their supply, and its value as 
a fuel. People with an experience of cer- 
tain parts of the United Kingdom are 
apt to associate peat fuel with outlandish 
districts where everything is backward, 
and where it is used for burning simply 
because nothing else can be had. They 
think of the sodden bog to which the 
labourer— when not otherwise employed m 
remunerative work — goes his way to cat 
briquettes, has them stacked for the wind 
and sun to evaporate the super-abundant 
moisture, and after many days they are 
transported to the farm or cottage for house- 
hold use. It is very much a fuel for the 
poor ; but the peat reek (smoke) has a charm 
tor all who know it, and possesses a fragrance 
which can fill the heart with many an old- 
time tender memory. The home visitor 
may often see much of the land, and 
traverse many of its roads, without having 
in any way come in touch with "the 
glowing fires of peat." Coal is at home the 
univeral stand-by for heating purposes, as 
fire-wood is in this colony ; but the ever- 
increasing cost of timber fuel— in such 
places as Nnwara Eliya where peat is 
everywhere in evidence —suggests the thought 
that if the American method of handling 
the vegetable deposit were followed, there 
might be a remunerative new enterprise 
ready to the hand of any who had the 
pluck to work it, while at the same time 
a good service would be done to the 
community. Not only in the great Republic 
of the West have the bogs being turned 
into money ; but Russia, Germany and Hol- 
land are all working on the same lines. 
Sweden, however, has the first place in 
the race, for it already possesses a Royal 
Peat Association which has blossomed out 
in the eyes of the world with a Peat 
Exposition, and showed last year twenty- 
four varieties of native peat. Peat, as 
compared with coal and wood, has been the 
subject of boiler heating tests, under the 
auspices of the American Society of Mecha- 
nical Engineers, and the results are as 
follows :— Two and one half tons of pine 
wood gave the same heat as a ton of hard 
coal. It took one-andfour-fifths of a ton 
of common air-dried peat to give the same 
thermal result. The average heat given 
out by a pound of the best soft coal is 
1 3,600 tliermal units and from a similar weight 
of dry peat 9,000 units are obtained. Still 
better results are expected from the new 
system of peat manufacture — which is to 
grind the peat to pulp, extract the water 
by fans, and then press the pulp into 
blocks as hard .as coal. It is claimed for 
these manufactured briquettes that they 
will yield more heat than ordinary hard 
coal. The price of manufacturing the peat 
into fuel— when the figures for the Continent 
are taken— is sixty cents of a dollar per 
ton— say Rr20— labour being cheap ; in 
America where labourers' wages are high, 
the cost is $1*75 a ton— say R350, which 
covers royalties as well. I'he advocates of 
peat as a fuel have many good things to 
say in its favour. It does not dry the air 
as coal fires do, and it is as antiseptic as 
the atmosphere of a pine forest. The fine 
complexions of Irish and Swedish women are 
claimed as largely due to the moist pure 
air of peat fires. Peat charcoal is a good 
disinfectant, and some Continental chemists 
declare that it is death to the cholera 
bacillus ; while the ash in manufactures, 
and as a fertilizer, equals in worth, its 
original cost. It makes the richest swards 
for lawns ; discourages insect pests, and 
mutton fed on pastures which have been 
dressed with it, is unapproachable for 
flavour. Water drawn from peat streams can 
take a voyage round the world and be sweet at 
the end of it. Portions of the upper layer of 
the peat when ground with asphalte is a 
most enduring and elastic pavement, and 
the charcoal of carefully burnt peat is 
worth five times as much as wood charcoal 
for the higher uses in arts and manufactures. 
This is an extensive and attractive pro- 
gramme for peat-fuel, in its bid for pub- 
lic regard, and compares favourably with 
firewood or coal. What is advanced above, 
coming as it does from an American source, 
albeit one of the sanest of the weeklies of 
New York, may be all the better of the 
grain of salt ; but even with that condiment 
added there is a good show which remains 
worthy of notice. In the island there are 
many places where the peat deposit can be 
found, but in selecting a site for an ex- 
periment it would be well to be within easy 
haulage of a ready market. Nuwara l^liya is 
specially a favoured spot with its large resi- 
dent population as a possible constituency, 
and peat everywhere in evidence. The Ceylon 
maker of peat briquettes, has, in the hot 
sun of the tropics, a great advantage over 
either the European or American peat manu- 
facturer, and is not likely to be under-sold 
by the Government Forest Department. If 
the making of peat-fuel were found to be 
a success at the Sanatarium other places 
could be tried, and in time we would have 
a new industry of considerable promise estab- 
lished, and the community helped. Our readers 
will remember the six gradations of carbon : 
—Peat, Petroleum, Coal, Plumbago, Amber 
and Diamond. 
' Bananina.': a Plantain Exthact.— We 
have received from the Banana Food Co*, Ltd., 
Alderman's House, Bishopsgate-street, London, 
E.G., a sample of their speciality, •Bananina.' 
This is a food prepared from a special growth of the 
banana, after tlie fibrous matter is extracted by 
a special process, which has received no less than 
elven awards in London, Paris, Brussels, etc. 
Analysis of ' Bananina ' shows that it is absolutely 
without adulterant, and that over eighty per cent 
consists of carbo-hydrates, which, according to 
eminent medical authorities, are very necessary to 
the debilitated and feeble ; whilst the phosphoric 
acid, which appears in fairly large proportion, 
plays an important part in every good food,— 
Grocers' Journal, 
