| 
known as water-borne peat or water-slain moss, 
which possesses a sort of alluvial character, or 
has been floated away, comminuted, and deposit- 
ed by water; and the most suitable soil for re- 
ceiving benefit from peat composts, especially from 
such as contain a large proportion of the peat 
in an ill-decomposed condition, is adhesive clay 
or such other as wants porosity and does not ad- 
mit a sufficient aeration. 
But composts by no means possess the value 
which general opinion has of late years assigned 
to them, and ought not to be allowed the promi- 
nence in the aggregate practices of agriculture 
which they have recently assumed. Hven when 
both lime and peat are abundant, many a farmer 
might probably realize far better returns from 
using the lime to reclaim the peat soil in situ, 
than from the digging up of the peat and the 
mixing of it and the lime into a compost for other 
land. Though all pure peat is organic matter, 
and might, on that account, appear to be emi- 
nently fitted to yield the elements of vegetable 
nutrition, yet it is organic matter of the rankest 
kind, destitute of all the proximate principles of 
the most useful sorts of plants, and packed with 
such antiseptic and acrid secretions as are posi- 
tively mischievous to valuable vegetation. The 
herbage of all moorlands and peaty grounds 
progressively increases in rankness and coarse- 
ness from the exhaustion of the proper nutri- 
ment of the finer plants; and the peat gener- 
ally employed for making composts is dung 
from the higher or more recent strata of peaty 
grounds, and therefore consists wholly or almost 
wholly of the elements of the most wretched her- 
bage. “But,” says Dr. Madden, “the question 
will be asked, Why should such an origin be con- 
sidered a disadvantage? ‘Two answers can be 
given to this question. (1.) Because the com- 
post will contain the peculiar saline compounds 
which naturally exist in these plants; and con- 
sequently its employment as manure will tend to 
reproduce these useless weeds, especially in soil 
at all predisposed to infection. Lest any of my 
practical readers should imagine that this objec- 
tion is purely theoretical, I would just call their 
attention to the following practical fact. All 
persons who are acquainted with the herbage of 
peaty soils, must have noticed the great quantities 
of sorrel, Rumex acetosella, which grow wherever 
the soil is at all dry. Now, in a paper upon the 
properties and uses of peat, by John Nasmith, 
Hsq., published in the Highland Society’s Trans- 
actions, he expressly states, that peat-manure 
should not be used for ‘light blowing sands’ (the 
kind of soil most prone to infection) ‘as it would 
increase the distemper of the soil, and promote 
the growth of Rumex acetosella. And again, in 
an excellent paper upon the use of lime, publish- 
ed some time ago in America, the author men- 
tions, that one of many benefits derived from the 
use of this substance, is the destruction of the 
Rumex acetosella, and other acid plants, which grow 
COMPOST. 
851 
so abundantly on the poorer soils in his neigh- 
bourhood; but lime and peat are so far incom- 
patible, that the former always destroys the char- 
acteristic properties of the latter. I may here 
remark, that this last observation proves that 
peat-compost with lime is less objectionable in 
this respect than that formed with farm-yard dung. 
(2.) But another answer may be given to the 
question, which again refers more to the lime- 
compost, namely, that, as the quantity of azote 
contained in plants gradually increases as we go 
up the scale of vegetables, and as the utility of 
manures for the higher orders of plants—as, for 
example, our cultivated crops—depends directly 
upon the quantity of azote which they contain, 
it follows that a manure derived from the lowest 
species of plants must be but ill fitted for the 
purposes of the farm; although, in the case of 
compost with farm-yard dung, this objection will 
be less valid, on account of the large proportion 
of azote existing in that substance, which, of 
course, will add to the quantity contained in the 
compost.” 
Another very common compost is a combina- 
tion of farm-yard manure with the scrapings of 
roads, the sweepings of ditches, the clearings of 
headlands, and generally with all kinds of rough 
and waste mixtures of earthy and vegetable mat- 
ters. The mixing of farm-yard manure, while in 
the initial stage of decomposition, with earth and 
inert vegetable matter, consisting of the decayed 
roots and leaves of grasses and other plants, re- 
duces it to a humid and soluble condition, pre- 
pares it for absorption by the spongioles of a 
young crop, and greatly increases its bulk without 
deteriorating its quality. The earthy and waste 
vegetable matters imbibe a large proportion of 
the nitrogenous juices which, in unmixed farm- 
yard manure, usually evaporate or become gase- 
ous during the process of fermentation ; and, in | 
consequence of the imbibition of these juices and 
the decomposition of their own organic and sal- 
ine principles, they become, in many instances, 
almost or even altogether as powerfully manurial 
as the dung with which they are mixed. A com- 
post of this kind may, according to ruling cir- 
cumstances of economy, be formed either in the 
yard in which the dung is kept, or on the head- | 
lands of the fields to which it is to be applied. 
If the quantity of urine to be imbibed from the 
cattle-sheds be considerable, and the earthy and 
waste materials be near, the compost may be 
most advantageously formed in the farm-yard ; 
but if the urine be economically drained off into a 
receptacle for liquid manure, and the earthy and 
waste materials be much nearer to the fields than 
to the farmery, the compost ought to be formed 
on the headlands. The manner of forming the 
compost is to spread alternate layers of the farm- 
yard manure and of the earthy and vegetable 
rubbish, each six or eight inches thick, and all as. 
nearly as possible regular, to cover the whole 
with a coat or envelope of earth, till intermixture 
