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  PEAT AND ITS USES,

  AS

  FERTILIZER AND FUEL.



  BY

  SAMUEL W. JOHNSON, A. M.,

  PROFESSOR OF ANALYTICAL AND AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY, YALE COLLEGE.



  FULLY ILLUSTRATED.



  NEW-YORK:
  ORANGE JUDD & COMPANY.
  245 BROADWAY.




  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by

  ORANGE JUDD & CO.,

  At the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
  for the Southern District of New-York.



  LOVEJOY & SON,
  ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS
  15 Vandewater street N. Y.




  TO MY FATHER,

  MY EARLIEST AND BEST

  INSTRUCTOR IN RURAL AFFAIRS,

  THIS VOLUME

  IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.

  S. W. J.




  CONTENTS.

  Introduction                                                         vii

  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[1]--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:

[1] 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
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.

In the countries above named, the weather is more uniform than here, the
air is more moist, and the excessive heat of our summers is scarcely
known. Such is the greater humidity of the atmosphere that the
bog-mosses,--the so-called _Sphagnums_,--which have a wonderful avidity
for moisture, (hence used for packing plants which require to be kept
moist on journeys), are able to keep fresh and in growth during the
entire summer. These mosses decay below, and throw out new vegetation
above, and thus produce a bog, especially wherever the earth is springy.
It is in this way that in those countries, moors and peat-bogs actually
grow, increasing in depth and area, from year to year, and raise
themselves above the level of the surrounding country.

Prof. Marsh informs the writer that he has seen in Ireland, near the
north-west coast, a granite hill, capped with a peat-bed, several feet
in thickness. In the Bavarian highlands similar cases have been
observed, in localities where the atmosphere and the ground are kept
moist enough for the growth of moss by the extraordinary prevalence of
fogs. Many of the European moors rise more or less above the level of
their borders towards the centre, often to a height of 10 or 20 and
sometimes of 30 feet. They are hence known in Germany as _high_ moors
(_Hochmoore_) to distinguish from the level or dishing _meadow-moors_,
(_Wiesenmoore_). The peat-producing vegetation of the former is chiefly
moss and heather, of the latter coarse grasses and sedges.

In Great Britain the reclamation of a moor is usually an expensive
operation, for which not only much draining, but actual cutting out and
burning of the compact peat is necessary.

The warmth of our summers and the dryness of our atmosphere prevent the
accumulation of peat above the highest level of the standing water of
our marshes, and so soon as the marshes are well drained, the peat
ceases to form, and in most cases the swamp may be easily converted into
good meadow land.

Springy hill-sides, which in cooler, moister climates would become
moors, here dry up in summer to such an extent that no peat can be
formed upon them.

As already observed, our peat is found in low places. In many instances
its accumulation began by the obstruction of a stream. To that
remarkable creature, the beaver, we owe many of our peat-bogs. These
animals, from time immemorial, have built their dams across rivers so as
to flood the adjacent forest. In the rich leaf-mold at the water's
verge, and in the cool shade of the standing trees, has begun the growth
of the sphagnums, sedges, and various purely aquatic plants. These in
their annual decay have shortly filled the shallow borders of the
stagnating water, and by slow encroachments, going on through many
years, they have occupied the deeper portions, aided by the trees,
which, perishing, give their fallen branches and trunks, towards
completing the work. The trees decay and fall, and become entirely
converted into peat; or, as not unfrequently happens, especially in case
of resinous woods, preserve their form, and to some extent their
soundness.

In a similar manner, ponds and lakes are encroached upon; or, if
shallow, entirely filled up by peat deposits. In the Great Forest of
Northern New York, the voyager has abundant opportunity to observe the
formation of peat-swamps, both as a result of beaver dams, and of the
filling of shallow ponds, or the narrowing of level river courses. The
formation of peat in water of some depth greatly depends upon the growth
of aquatic plants, other than those already mentioned. In our Eastern
States the most conspicuous are the Arrow-head, (_Sagittaria_); the
Pickerel Weed, (_Pontederia_;) Duck Meat, (_Lemna_;) Pond Weed,
(_Potamogeton_;) various _Polygonums_, brothers of Buckwheat and
Smart-weed; and especially the Pond Lilies, _(Nymphoea_ and _Nuphar_.)
The latter grow in water four or five feet deep, their leaves and long
stems are thick and fleshy, and their roots, which fill the oozy mud,
are often several inches in diameter. Their decaying leaves and stems,
and their huge roots, living or dead, accumulate below and gradually
raise the bed of the pond. Their living foliage which often covers the
water almost completely for acres, becomes a shelter or support for
other more delicate aquatic plants and sphagnums, which, creeping out
from the shore, may so develop as to form a floating carpet, whereon the
leaves of the neighboring wood, and dust scattered by the wind collect,
bearing down the mass, which again increases above, or is reproduced
until the water is filled to its bottom with vegetable matter.

It is not rare to find in our bogs, patches of moss of considerable area
concealing deep water with a treacherous appearance of solidity, as the
hunter and botanist have often found to their cost. In countries of more
humid atmosphere, they are more common and attain greater dimensions. In
Zealand the surfaces of ponds are so frequently covered with floating
beds of moss, often stout enough to bear a man, that they have there
received a special name "_Hangesak_." In the Russian Ural, there occur
lakes whose floating covers of moss often extend five or six feet above
the water, and are so firm that roads are made across them, and forests
of large fir-trees find support. These immense accumulations are in fact
floating moors, consisting entirely of peat, save the living vegetation
at the surface.

Sometimes these floating peat-beds, bearing trees, are separated by
winds from their connection with the shore, and become swimming peat
islands. In a small lake near Eisenach, in Central Germany, is a
swimming island of this sort. Its diameter is 40 rods, and it consists
of a felt-like mass of peat, three to five feet in depth, covered above
by sphagnums and a great variety of aquatic plants. A few birches and
dwarf firs grow in this peat, binding it together by their roots, and
when the wind blows, they act as sails, so that the island is constantly
moving about upon the lake.

On the Neusiedler lake, in Hungary, is said to float a peat island
having an area of six square miles, and on lakes of the high Mexican
Plateau are similar islands which, long ago, were converted in fruitful
gardens.

3. _The different kinds of Peat._

Very great differences in the characters of the deposits in our
peat-beds are observable. These differences are partly of color, some
peats being gray, others red, others again black; the majority, when
dry, possess a dark brown-red or snuff color. They also vary remarkably
in weight and consistency. Some are compact, destitute of fibres or
other traces of the vegetation from which they have been derived, and on
drying, shrink greatly and yield tough dense masses which burn readily,
and make an excellent fuel. Others again are light and porous, and
remain so on drying; these contain intermixed vegetable matter that is
but little advanced in the peaty decomposition. Some peats are almost
entirely free from mineral matters, and on burning, leave but a few _per
cent._ of ash, others contain considerable quantities of lime or iron,
in chemical combination, or of sand and clay that have been washed in
from the hills adjoining the swamps. As has been observed, the peat of
some swamps is mostly derived from mosses, that of others originates
largely from grasses; some contain much decayed wood and leaves, others
again are free from these.

In the same swamp we usually observe more or less of all these
differences. We find the surface peat is light and full of partly
decayed vegetation, while below, the deposits are more compact. We
commonly can trace distinct strata or layers of peat, which are often
very unlike each other in appearance and quality, and in some cases the
light and compact layers alternate so that the former are found below
the latter.

The light and porous kinds of peat appear in general to be formed in
shallow swamps or on the surface of bogs, where there is considerable
access of air to the decaying matters, while the compacter, older, riper
peats are found at a depth, and seem to have been formed beneath the
low water mark, in more complete exclusion of the atmosphere, and under
a considerable degree of pressure.

The nature of the vegetation that flourishes in a bog, has much effect
on the character of the peat. The peats chiefly derived from mosses that
have grown in the full sunlight, have a yellowish-red color in their
upper layers, which usually becomes darker as we go down, running
through all shades of brown until at a considerable depth it is black.
Peats produced principally from grasses are grayish in appearance at the
surface, being full of silvery fibres--the skeletons of the blades of
grasses and sedges, while below they are commonly black.

_Moss peat_ is more often fibrous in structure, and when dried forms
somewhat elastic masses. _Grass peat_, when taken a little below the
surface, is commonly destitute of fibres; when wet, is earthy in its
look, and dries to dense hard lumps.

Where mosses and grasses have grown together simultaneously in the same
swamp, the peat is modified in its characters accordingly. Where, as may
happen, grass succeeds moss, or moss succeeds grass, the different
layers reveal their origin by their color and texture. At considerable
depths, however, where the peat is very old, these differences nearly or
entirely disappear.

The geological character of a country is not without influence on the
kind of peat. It is only in regions where the rocks are granitic or
silicious, where, at least, the surface waters are free or nearly free
from lime, that _mosses_ make the bulk of the peat.

In limestone districts, peat is chiefly formed from _grasses_ and
_sedges_.

This is due to the fact that mosses (sphagnums) need little lime for
their growth, while the grasses require much; aquatic grasses cannot,
therefore, thrive in pure waters, and in waters containing the requisite
proportion of lime, grasses and sedges choke out the moss.

The accidental admixtures of soil often greatly affect the appearance
and value of a peat, but on the whole it would appear that its quality
is most influenced by the degree of decomposition it has been subjected
to.

In meadows and marshes, overflowed by the ocean tides, we have
_salt-peat_, formed from Sea-weeds (_Algae_,) Salt-wort