IMPORTANT TYPES OF PEAT MATERIAL. 6 
relatively poor peat areas are reclaimed at much less cost than was 
formerly the experience. It is principally through the detailed colla- 
tion of information for many years past, regarding the formation, 
structure, and distribution of different kinds of peat deposits, and the 
botanical, physical, and chemical differences of the various types of 
their organic contents, as well as through the systematically con- 
ducted observations of the several field conditions to be considered, 
that a corresponding profitable and varied development in the use of 
these resources has been possible. 
More and more in this country the demand is becoming urgent for 
information concerning peat materials which affect the productive- 
ness and health of crops. Information is called for in estimating the 
value, the supply, and the possible range of usefulness of special 
grades of peat for specific crops or for manufactures, for that yielding 
a satisfactory material as a carrier for bacterial organisms, for fer- 
tilizer purposes, for litter, fuel, or distillation products, and for other 
uses. Advice is needed to point out the difficulties to be avoided, espe- 
cially when an area of peat land may be developed for both agricul- 
tural and technical purposes by communities or associations and may 
be made increasingly profitable because of the equal, if not greater, 
value of the underlying mineral soil for staple crops, for special 
forms of economic plants, or for intensified methods of farming. 
There are many instances of failure of efforts based on impractical 
and previously discarded ideas which time and again have been tried 
on an extensive scale in Europe and in this country, only to meet the 
same experience. The traditional disregard for facts of a qualifying 
nature, or for drawing a plan having due regard for the existing 
factors and needs of an undertaking; the inability of scientific work- 
ers to understand or to compare critically each other's researches in 
the field of peat investigations, because the terms peat and muck are 
not qualified and because faulty conceptions regarding them have 
still an unchallenged place in the scientific literature of this coun- 
try — these are some of the results of the present situation, and for 
both national and economic reasons they reflect indeed a serious con- 
dition. 
Types of peat material, their differences in botanical composition, 
in disintegration capacity, and in related physical and chemical 
characteristics have been established in Europe by many years of 
experience and scientific investigation. They form an adequate basis 
in problems which deal with methods to be practiced in the develop- 
ment and cultural preparation of a peat deposit, such as the well- 
known " Veenkultur," the Rimpau cultural method, the German 
high-moor method, and others, or in operations where the removal 
of peat for technical uses and centralized power plants is prac- 
ticable. Data such as those just mentioned, regarding the nature and 
