July 15, 1924 
Chemical Examination of Peat Materials 
73 
peat material with acids or alkalis. 
But at present this method is not an 
economical one. By composting peat 
with manure, sewage, or other plant 
and animal waste products, however, a 
relatively large portion of the peat 
nitrogen may be made soluble, and may 
be mineralized by the action of bac¬ 
teria and fungi. Thus far the bacteri¬ 
ology of this process has received but 
scant attention. 
NONNITROGENOUS SUBSTANCES IN 
VARIOUS KINDS OF PEAT 
Carbohydrates constitute the major 
portion of the organic material in 
plants as well as in peat, and they 
form one of the most important sources 
of energy for microorganisms. The 
carbohydrates include the lignose or 
woody portion of plant products, the 
cellulose with related forms, the 
pentoses corresponding to sugars, the 
pentosans usually associated with 
starches and celluloses, and many non- 
nitrogenous acids. Although certain 
groups of plants produce a character¬ 
istic diversity of carbohydrates, yet 
all these substances are closely related 
chemically, being composed of the 
same elements. 
Due to the comparatively large 
amount of carbonaceous compounds 
in layers of peat, the fermentation and 
carbonization of this type of raw 
organic materials is advocated. Car¬ 
bonized peat acts as an absorbent for 
uncrystallized residues from beet and 
cane-sugar refining. Charred material 
of this kind has been used in the 
United States as an ingredient in the 
preparation of commercial feed with 
cottonseed meal and molasses, thus 
permitting the feeding of large quan¬ 
tities of these materials to livestock 
and poultry. It is claimed that prop¬ 
erly prepared, carbonized peat con¬ 
tains valuable nutritive ingredients 
and acts as a corrective and preventive 
in livestock diseases. The investiga¬ 
tions of Kellner {23), Goy {17), Stutzer 
{50), Godden {14), and others have 
shown that as a matter of fact peat 
does not have any particular nutritive 
value when used as a basis for stock 
feed, whether in raw condition, treated 
with acid, or carbonized. 
The possibility of using dried and 
charred peat as a diluent with mineral 
fertilizers or with tankage, and the use 
of peat innoculated with bacteria in 
compounding of commercial fertilizers 
is also a matter of considerable interest. 
Much depends upon adequate general 
information, and upon devising new 
arid more effecient methods for deter¬ 
mining the grade and value of the 
several kinds of peat material used in 
such products. 
The course of decomposition of peat 
layers through bacterial action is 
greatly influenced by the relative con¬ 
tent and quality of nonnitrogenous and 
nitrogenous substances. In regard to 
the carbon-nitrogen ratio Zailer and 
Wilk {53) and Bersch {2) have found 
that the relation of these two elements 
does not change with the depth of a 
peat deposit, but varies with the botan¬ 
ical composition of the peat-forming 
plant remains. The conclusion to be 
drawn from the results reported in 
Tables II and III is in accordance with 
these authors. As in other cases, dis¬ 
cussed below, peat deposits with an 
irregular and complex pedomorphic 
profile show no regularity between 
carbon-nitrogen value and depth or 
age of the peat material. However, 
when a deposit is examined which has 
the same botanical composition 
throughout, the investigations show a 
tendency toward the attainment of a 
maximum value of carbon and nitrogen, 
and a minimum for oxygen and hydro¬ 
gen. 
Little is known regarding the com¬ 
plex of factors which would enable 
one to designate peat materials as 
superior, good, fair, or poor in quality. 
In this country it has not been deter¬ 
mined experimentally whether peat 
materials with a wide carbon-nitrogen 
ratio are more or less valuable than 
those with a narrow ratio of carbona¬ 
ceous and nitrogenous material. Infor¬ 
mation presented by Lohnis {26) makes 
it very probable that peat materials 
with comparatively large quantities of 
carbonaceous compounds and relatively 
low amounts of nitrogen are not as 
advantageous as those in which the re¬ 
lation of nitrogen to carbon is a nar¬ 
rower one. 
The data in Table II indicate that 
under similar conditions peat layers de¬ 
rived from sedges, reeds, hypnum 
mosses, and woody plant remains in 
which the average relation of C:N is 
equal to 6 or 10:1 are of a better grade 
and would make better “muck” dur¬ 
ing soil-forming processes than the 
layers of sphagnum peat in which the 
relation of nonnitrogenous to nitroge¬ 
nous matter is as 20:1. These results 
also show that the sedimentary, finely 
divided pond-formed layers of peat 
possess a very narrow range of about 
2C:1N. The largest variation is in*the 
fibrous group of peat materials. 
These facts support the information 
conveyed in Bulletin 802 {8) relating 
to the economic rank or value and the 
