PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT. 
309 
weather the moisture content of the peat will diminish to 25% in 
about two weeks. 
It is then taken up from the ground and stored under shelter 
until wanted for grinding. After grinding to a coarse powder it 
is passed through the drier, which consists of an iron tube about 40 
feet long and 5 feet in diameter, slightly inclined, and kept slowly 
rotating by suitable machinery, while the flames of a furnace are 
conducted through it. The damp freshly-ground peat is poured in 
at the upper end, and in half an hour or less comes out at the lower 
end with less than 10% of moisture (which is the maximum ac¬ 
cepted by the fertilizer manufacturers). The driers most commonly 
used have only a single tube, but Mr. Ranson has lately found 
many advantages in using one with an inner and outer tube, 
which makes the gases from the furnace traverse the whole length 
of the drier twice, and keeps the outer shell from becoming red-hot 
as it usually does in the single-tube apparatus. 
Ground peat as a filler has several advantages over other sub¬ 
stances used to dilute commercial fertilizers, such as sand, ground 
slag, coal waste, etc., because it is organic matter, and cannot in¬ 
jure the soil as some of these other substances do, and it contains 
nitrogen, a valuable plant food. But much of this nitrogen is in 
such combinations that it does not become available to plants until 
after a few years of weathering, and in many states there are legal 
obstacles in the way of counting such nitrogen in the guaranteed 
analysis of fertilizers. 
Another circumstance.which tends to retard the use of peat as 
a source of nitrogen, is the comparatively recent discovery of a 
cheap method of extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere and com¬ 
bining it with calcium carbide to form calcium cyanamide, which 
has proved to a valuable fertilizing material. However, it is possi¬ 
ble by chemical processes to separate nitrogen from peat in a form 
available to plants, and it is altogether probable that future inven¬ 
tions and improvements will cheapen these processes so that peat 
nitrogen can compete successfully with that derived from other 
sources. 
For a more elaborate discussion of the use of peat as a fertiliz¬ 
ing material see the articles by Haskins, cited in the bibliography. 
