Mere peat is not a good soil, even when sufficiently drained, but, by the application of lime, marl, etc., it is soon converted into good soil, yielding excellent crops. A mixture of peat is often of benefit to soils otherwise poor. And for many shrubs, as rhododendrons, kalmias, whortleberries, etc., no soil is so suitable as one in great part composed of peat; which is therefore in much request with gardeners in order to the formation of the soil for certain kinds of plants.
Peat is extensively used for fuel. The more perfectly decomposed that the vegetable matter is, and the more consolidated that the peat therefore is, the better it is suited for this use. It is the ordinary fuel of great part of Ireland, and is there almost always called turf, although the term turf, in its ordinary English sense, is utterly inapplicable to it. To procure peat for fuel, the portion or bog to be operated upon must first be partially dried by a wide open drain; its surface is then pared off with the spade, to the depth of about 6 in., to remove the coarse uudeconaposed vegetable matter; the peat is afterwards cut out in pieces (peals) like bricks, by means chiefly of a peculiar implement, called in Ireland a Slane, and in Scotland a peat-spade, resembling a long, narrow, sharp spade, the blade of which is furnished on one side with a tongue set at a right angle to it. This implement is used by the hands alone, without pressure of the foot. The soft peats are conveyed to some neighboring place, where they are set up on end in little clusters to • dry. When sufficiently dry, they are conveyed away, and may be piled in out-houses or stacked iu the open air. The operation of peat-cutting is always performed in spring or summer.—Where peat for fuel cannot be obtained in the way just described, the black mud of a semi-fluid bog isksometinies worked by the feet of a party of men, women, and children until it acquires such a consistency that it can be molded by the hand. The process is laborious, but the fuel obtained by it is good.—In countries depending on peat for fuel, a very rainy season sometimes occasions great inconvenience, and even distress, by preventing the cutting and drying of the peat.
Peat is a light and bulky kind of fuel, and cannot be conveyed to considerable dis tances without too great expense. Efforts have, however, been made, both in Scotland
and Ireland, to render it more generally useful, and so to promote the reclaiming of bogs by so compressing it until its specific gravity is nearly equal to that of coal.. For this purpose it is first reduced to a pulp. The compressing of peat has not yet been advantageously prosecuted on an extensive scale.
Peat-charcoal, made from uncompressed peat, is very light and inflammable, and there fore unsuitable for many purposes, but for others it is particularly adapted, and no kind of charcoal excels it in antiseptic and deodorizing properties. It is also an excellent manure for many kinds of soil, and great crops have often been obtained by its use. Peat-charcoal is highly esteemed for the smelting of iron, and for working and temper ing the finer kiads of cutlery. Charcoal made from compressed peat is in density superior to wood-charcoal, and is capable of being used as coke. The Irish amelioration society, some years ago, encouraged the conversion of peat into charcoal, but it seems not to have paid as a commercial speculation. although the resulting charcoal was of good quality. Various companies have been formed for the purpose of obtaining valu able products from the destructive distillation of peat. It appears from researches of sir R. Kane and others that 1000 parts of peat yield about 11 of sulphate of ammonia, 7 of acetate of lime, 2 of wood naphtha, 1 of paraffin, 7 of fixed oil, and 3 of volatile oil. The manufacture has not, however, as yet proved sufficiently profitable to be generally adopted, although the distillation of peat has, we believe, been carried on for some years at Athy, near Kildare. For further details on this subject, the reader is referred to a parliamentary Report on the Nature and Products of the Destructive Distillation, of Peat, published in 18M, and to a paper by Dr. Paul in the 6th volume of The Chemical News. A more recent contribution to the subject is The Peat Mosses of Buchan—by the rev. James Peter, minister of Deer (Aberdeen, 1875).
Flower-pots are sometimes made of peat. It is easy to transplant flowers growing in them without loosening the earth from the roots, the pot being readily cut to pieces; and liquid manure applied outsidefinds its way sufficiently to the roots.