Peat and Its Uses As Fertilizer and Fuel

Part I.--Origin, Varieties, and Chemical Characters of Peat.

PAGE 1. What is Peat? 9 2. Conditions of its Formation 9 3. Different Kinds of Peat 14 Swamp Muck 17 Salt Mud 18 4. Chemical Characters and Composition of Peat 18 a. Organic or combustible part 19 Ulmic and Humic Acids 19 Ulmin and Humin--Crenic and Apocrenic Acids 20 Ulmates and Humates 21 Crenates and Apocrenates 22 Gein and Geic Acid--Elementary Composition of Peat 23 Ultimate Composition of the Constituents of Peat 25 b. Mineral Part--Ashes 25 5. Chemical Changes that occur in the Formation of Peat 26

Part Ii.--on the Agricultural Uses of Peat and Swamp Muck.

1. Characters that adapt Peat for Agricultural Use 28 A. Physical or Amending Characters 28 I. Absorbent Power for Water, as Liquid and Vapor 31 II. " " for Ammonia 32 III. Influence in Disintegrating the Soil 34 IV. Influence on the Temperature of Soils 37 B. Fertilizing Characters 38 I. Fertilizing Effects of the Organic Matters, excluding Nitrogen 38 1. Organic Matters as Direct Food to Plants 38 2. Organic Matters as Indirect Food to Plants 40 3. Nitrogen, including Ammonia and Nitric Acid 42 II. Fertilizing Effects of the Ashes of Peat 46 III. Peculiarities in the Decay of Peat 50 IV. Comparison of Peat with Stable Manure 51 2. Characters of Peat that are detrimental, or that need correction 54 I. Possible Bad Effects on Heavy Soils 54 II. Noxious Ingredients 55 a. Vitriol Peats 55 b. Acidity--c. Resinous Matters 57 3. Preparation of Peat for Agricultural Use 57 a. Excavation 57 b. Exposure, or Seasoning 59 c. Composting 62 Compost with Stable Manure 63 " " Night Soil 68 " " Guano 69 " " Fish and other Animal Matters 70 " " Potash-lye & Soda-ash; Wood-ashes, Shell-marl, Lime 72 " " Salt and Lime Mixture 73 " " Carbonate of Lime, Mortar, etc 75 4. The Author's Experiments with Peat Composts 77 5. Examination of Peat with reference to its Agricultural Value 81 6. Composition of Connecticut Peats 84 Method of Analysis 86 Tables of Composition 88-89-90

Part Iii.--on Peat As Fuel

1. Kinds of Peat that Make the Best Fuel 92 2. Density of Peat 95 3. Heating Power of Peat as Compared with Wood and Anthracite 96 4. Modes of Burning Peat 102 5. Burning of Broken Peat 103 6. Hygroscopic Water of Peat-fuel 104 7. Shrinkage 105 8. Time of Excavation and Drying 105 9. Drainage 106 10. Cutting of Peat for Fuel--a. Preparations for Cutting 107 b. Cutting by Hand; with Common Spade; German Peat Knife 108 " with Irish Slane--System employed in East Friesland 109 c. Machines for Cutting Peat; Brosowsky's Machine; Lepreux's Machine 113 11. Dredging of Peat 115 12. Moulding of Peat 116 13. Preparation of Peat-fuel by Machinery, etc 116 A. Condensation by Pressure 116 a. Of Fresh Peat 116 Mannhardt's Method 117 The Neustadt Method 119 b. Of Air-dried Peat--Lithuanian Process 120 c. Of Hot-dried Peat--Gwynne's Method; Exter's Method 121 Elsberg's Process 125 B. Condensation without Pressure 127 a. Of Earthy Peat 128 Challeton's Method, at Mennecy, France 128 " " Langenberg, Prussia 130 Roberts' " Pekin, N. Y. 132 Siemens' " Boeblingen, Wirtemberg 134 b. Condensation of Fibrous Peat--Weber's Method; Hot-drying 135 Gysser's Method and Machine 140 c. Condensation of Peat of all Kinds--Schlickeysen's Machine 144 Leavitt's Peat Mill, Lexington, Mass 146 Ashcroft & Betteley's Machine 148 Versmann's Machine, Great Britain 150 Buckland's " " 151 14. Artificial Drying of Peat 152 15. Peat Coal 157 16. Metallurgical Uses of Peat 162 17. Peat as a Source of Illuminating Gas 165 18. Examination of Peat with regard to its Value as Fuel 167

INTRODUCTION.

In the years 1857 and 1858, the writer, in the capacity of Chemist to the State Agricultural Society of Connecticut, was commissioned to make investigations into the agricultural uses of the deposits of peat or swamp muck which are abundant in this State; and, in 1858, he submitted a Report to Henry A. Dyer, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the Society, embodying his conclusions. In the present work the valuable portions of that Report have been recast, and, with addition of much new matter, form Parts I. and II. The remainder of the book, relating to the preparation and employment of peat for fuel, &c., is now for the first time published, and is intended to give a faithful account of the results of the experience that has been acquired in Europe, during the last twenty-five years, in regard to the important subject of which it treats.

The employment of peat as an amendment and absorbent for agricultural purposes has proved to be of great advantage in New-England farming.

It is not to be doubted, that, as fuel, it will be even more valuable than as a fertilizer. Our peat-beds, while they do not occupy so much territory as to be an impediment and a reproach to our country, as they have been to Ireland, are yet so abundant and so widely distributed--occurring from the Atlantic to the Missouri, along and above the 40th parallel, and appearing on our Eastern Coast at least as far South as North Carolina--as to present, at numberless points, material, which, sooner or later, will serve us most usefully when other fuel has become scarce and costly.

The high prices which coal and wood have commanded for several years back have directed attention to peat fuel; and, such is the adventurous character of American enterprise, it cannot be doubted that we shall rapidly develop and improve the machinery for producing it. As has always been the case, we shall waste a vast deal of time and money in contriving machines that violate every principle of mechanism and of economy; but the results of European invention furnish a safe basis from which to set out, and we have among us the genius and the patience that shall work out the perfect method.

It may well be urged that a good degree of caution is advisable in entering upon the peat enterprise. In this country we have exhaustless mines of the best coal, which can be afforded at a very low rate, with which other fuel must compete. In Germany, where the best methods of working peat have originated, fuel is more costly than here; and a universal and intense economy there prevails, of which we, as a people, have no conception.

If, as the Germans themselves admit, the peat question there is still a nice one as regards the test of dollars and cents, it is obvious, that, for a time, we must "hasten slowly." It is circumstances that make peat, and gold as well, remunerative or otherwise; and these must be well considered in each individual case. Peat is the name for a material that varies extremely in its quality, and this quality should be investigated carefully before going to work upon general deductions.

In my account of the various processes for working peat by machinery, such data as I have been able to find have been given as to cost of production. These data are however very imperfect, and not altogether trustworthy, in direct application to American conditions. The cheapness of labor in Europe is an item to our disadvantage in interpreting foreign estimates. I incline to the belief that this is more than offset among us by the quality of our labor, by the energy of our administration, by the efficiency of our overseeing, and, especially, by our greater skill in the adaptation of mechanical appliances. While counselling caution, I also recommend enterprise in developing our resources in this important particular; knowing full well, however, that what I can say in its favor will scarcely add to the impulse already apparent among my countrymen.

SAMUEL W. JOHNSON.

Sheffield Scientific School,} Yale College, June, 1866. }

FOOTNOTES:

The great Dismal Swamp is a grand peat bog, and doubtless other of the swamps of the coast, as far south as Florida and the Gulf, are of the same character.

PART I.. The Origin, Varieties, and Chemical Characters

THE ORIGIN, VARIETIES, AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERS OF PEAT.

1. What is Peat?

By the general term Peat, we understand the organic matter or vegetable soil of bogs, swamps, beaver-meadows and salt-marshes.

It consists of substances that have resulted from the decay of many generations of aquatic or marsh plants, as mosses, sedges, coarse grasses, and a great variety of shrubs, mixed with more or less mineral substances, derived from these plants, or in many cases blown or washed in from the surrounding lands.

2. The conditions under which Peat is formed.

In this country the production of Peat from fallen and decaying plants, depends upon the presence of so much water as to cover or saturate the vegetable matters, and thereby hinder the full access of air. Saturation with water also has the effect to maintain the decaying matters at a low temperature, and by these two causes in combination, the process of decay is made to proceed with great slowness, and the solid products of such slow decay, are compounds that themselves resist decay, and hence they accumulate.

In the United States there appears to be nothing like the extensive moors or heaths, that abound in Ireland, Scotland, the north of England, North Germany, Holland, and the elevated plains of Bavaria, which are mostly level or gently sloping tracts of country, covered with peat or turf to a depth often of 20, and sometimes of 40, or more, feet. In this country it is only in low places, where streams become obstructed and form swamps, or in bays and inlets on salt water, where the flow of the tide furnishes the requisite moisture, that our peat-beds occur. If we go north-east as far as Anticosti, Labrador, or Newfoundland, we find true moors. In these regions have been found a few localities of the Heather (Calluna vulgaris), which is so conspicuous a plant on the moors of Europe, but which is wanting in the peat-beds of the United States.

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