Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

by Mary Huston Gregory

WOOD

Wood, which was formerly the only fuel used in this country, has now largely given place to other fuels. In rural districts and in lumber regions it is still used extensively; but in the cities, larger towns, and manufacturing regions, it is not used in commercial quantities. Its use for power production is limited to the wood-working factories which have a large amount of waste lumber and which employ this by-product to furnish heat for steam boilers.

The wood used for fuel or for power usually represents what would otherwise be lost, the dead trees and the unmarketable timber of the farmer's wood-lot, the refuse of lumber regions or the waste of wood-working factories. So that the use of wood as fuel now generally means the conservation of our coal supply, and a use for the low-grade parts of the forest.

In some cases, however, farmers cut for fuel fine young trees that would grow into excellent timber. Liberal planting of trees so that wood shall become plentiful in all parts of the country will tend to bring about again a larger use of wood as fuel, which will thus once more become a factor in the saving of our coal. Every farmer should learn to save all valuable trees for lumber, and to use only undesirable ones for fuel.

PEAT

Peat is said by geologists to be only "coal in the making," carbon that is in the state of changing from vegetable matter to coal. It is probable that in the course of centuries this would become coal, and in its present state it has many of the properties of coal, though it has not nearly so high a heating value.

In this country we have had such a wealth of fuel resources—coal, wood, oil, and gas—that up to the present time we have done little to develop our peat beds, although in European countries ten million tons are used annually for fuel, as well as large quantities for other purposes. From the earliest times peat has been the principal fuel of the common people of Ireland and some of the countries of northern Europe.

Now, however, people are trying to make the best of many resources not heretofore developed, coal prices are steadily advancing and the two causes combine to turn people's attention to the peat beds of America. One point that is worthy of notice is that peat is found mostly in regions where there is no coal, oil, or natural gas. The development of peat beds in those regions, it will be seen, would give them a great advantage in the matter of cheap fuel.

Large peat beds are found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New England, New Jersey, Florida, the Dakotas, northern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia; and near the coast in the gulf states, and a narrow strip along the Pacific coast, from southern California to the Canadian border. They cover an area of about 11,000 square miles and are supposed to contain not less than 14,000,000,000 tons of air-dried peat. At the rate of three dollars per ton, which is a reasonable price in the states having no coal, this peat would have a value of more than $40,000,000,000.

Peat is prepared for use as common fuel in two ways: (1) By cutting it into blocks or bricks, which are air-dried by exposure to sun and wind for a few weeks. This is called "cut peat," is bulky and easily breakable, and can be used only for local consumption. (2) By digging either by hand or machine, and grinding it in a mill. It is put in wet, ground, cut with rapidly turning knives, and passed out of the machine as a thick pulp that is cut into bricks as it comes out. It is then stored several weeks until thoroughly dried. This is called "machine peat," "pressed peat," or "condensed peat."