PEAT is a substanee of vegetable origin, found wherever the soil has been long soaked with water which has no outlet and does not completely evaporate by the heat of the sun. When dried peat is examined, it is found to consist of roots and fibres in every stage of decomposition, from the natural wood to the completely black vegetable mould. From the nature of its forrriation under the surface of the water, it acquires a portion of tannin, which has the property of preserving animal and vegetable matter from decomposition. Hence large branches and trunks of trees are found imbedded in peat, which have no mark of decomposition, except what may have taken place before the wood was completely im mersed in the peat. Peat contains all the elements of the richest manure, and may by an easy process be converted into humus ; for this purpose the agency of alkalies is the most effectual. If the tannin be decomposed, that of the vegetable fibre will go on, and soluble humus will be formed. When peat is newly dug up, if caustic lime be added to it before it is dry, the moisture of the peat slakes the lime, which acts on the gallic acid in the peat and neutralises it. If this mixture be then excited to fermentation by the addition of animal matter, such as urine or dung, oxygen is absorbed and carbonic acid evolved ; and the residue is converted into an excellent ma nure, containing much soluble humus. The same may be effected more slowly by mixing peat with clay or marl, and allowing the mix ture to remain exposed to the atmosphere for a considerable time, frequently turning it. But nothing accelerates this process like the addition of putrescent animal matter, which acts as a ferment and greatly hastens the decomposition.
The soils for which peat forms the best manure are the chalky and clayey. Sand has
too little tenacity ; it lets the gases produced by the decomposition escape, instead of attracting them, as clay and chalk do, and thus preventing their escape.
Coincident with the present Flax movement is an enterprise for converting the peat of Ire land into charcoal. The Irish Amelioration Society has already made a good beginning in this work. The charcoal thus obtained is not only highly valuable in the smelting of iron and other metals, but comes into action as a most useful ally in the sanitary and eco nomical measures that are now malting such progress. As a deodoriser, it is the best sub stance yet discovered, and by its agency the most offensive matter is converted into per f@OtlY inoffensive and 4ighiY n4441214s. illri nure. It has slready peen largely contracted for, to purify the sewerage of the metropolis, and to convert its nuisances into a source of profit. M the mannfa,eture of this charcoal increases, the inducement to reclaim land will be multiplied. 41ready round each char coal factory a rim of cottage gardens spreads, and the land, relieved from the load of other wise unprofitahle peat, produces the crops of a virgin soil.
A British and Irish Company, too, is • in process of formation, in which English capitalists propose to assist in the work. This ' company was suggested with reference rather to Dartmoor peat than to Irish peat; but if available for one, it would also for the other. The company profess to be able to obtain naphtha, paraffine, fixed oil, volatile pil, acetate pf lime, and sulphate of ammonia, from peat, at profitable prices ; but the cor rectness of the calculations requires the test of experience.