758 
Peat and its Products. 
near Stettin, may be taken as a fair example of the system 
generally employed. It is described as follows : — 
The turf is cut by gangs of four men ; one man cutting from the top 
with a sharp-cutting spade, square-ended. The second cuts from the side, 
following the first man, and at the same time dividing the turf into lengths 
as he goes on. This is usually done with a round-ended spade, in the shape 
of a turf-cutter or whale-spade, but sometimes, though rarely, a three-sided 
square-ended spade is used, somewhat in the shape of a brick mould without 
the fourth side. The third man follows the second, and takes the sods out 
with a four-pronged fork the handle of which is bent upwards to an angle 
of 45°, and lays them in rows on the moor behind the cutting. 
The peat is cut to a depth of 3 to 5 yards. The whole of 
this stratum is good, with the exception of 2 or 3 inches of the 
upper soil, which is thrown into the cuttings already made, and 
forms useful agricultural soil when the moor has been exhausted 
of peat. The cost of production does not appear to be sensibly 
reduced by machine-cutting. 
The best peat for burning is generally that which lies under- 
most, the upper layer, to a depth of 4 ft. G in., being used (where 
it is of suitable quality) for moss litter, and all beneath that 
depth for burning. 
At Carolinenhorst the peat is always dried in the open air, 
all other methods having proved too expensive. An attempt 
was made at Gifhorn, in the province of Hanover, to dry the 
peat artificially in an apparatus invented by Herr Kottbarth, 
but, as the system was abandoned after a very short trial, it 
appears not to have been a success. 
The peat dries best in the spring and early summer, and 
when once dry it is not much injured by rain, which runs off. 
The drying occupies on an average four months, but much of 
course depends upon the weather. The cutting is commenced 
at the end of March and continues until the middle of May — 
six to eight weeks. The drying lasts from the middle of May 
to the beginning of August — ten to twelve weeks. 
The stacking is carried out in the following manner : — 
One cubic metre ( = about 1-4 cubic yards) of turf yields 400 sods of peat, 
which, as they are cut, are laid in rows as before described. Then the women 
employed for stacking take the wet sods from the rows and stack them in 
pyramids 6 feet long by 3 feet broad and 6 feet high, each pyramid repre- 
senting 3 cubic metres of peat, or 1,200 sods. The sods in these stacks are 
not laid close together, but with a space between each of the first layer, 
which space is covered by the succeeding layer, and so on. 
The peat when dry is sold in these stacks or pyramids from 
the beginning of August to the middle of September, according 
to the weather. The pyramids are called “ Klafter,” and are 
classed for sale in the following manner : — 
