Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel

by Samuel W. Johnson

Some of the methods of hot-drying peat, will be subsequently noticed.

Summer or fall digging would be always advantageous on account of the swamps being then most free from water. In Bavaria, peat is dug mostly in July and the first half of August.

9.—Drainage.

When it is intended to raise peat fuel in the form of blocks, the bog should be drained no more rapidly than it is excavated. Peat, which is to be worth cutting in the spring, must be covered with water during the winter, else it is pulverized by the frost. So, too, it must be protected against drying away and losing its coherency in summer, by being kept sufficiently impregnated with water.

In case an extensive bog is to be drained to facilitate the cutting out of the peat for use as fuel, the canals that carry off the water from the parts which are excavating, should be so constructed, that on the approach of cold weather, the remaining peat may be flooded again to the usual height.

In most of the smaller swamps, systematic draining is unnecessary, the water drying away in summer enough to admit of easy working.

In some methods of preparing or condensing peat by machinery, it is best or even needful to drain and air-dry the peat, preliminary to working. By draining, the peat settles, especially on the borders of the ditches, several inches, or even feet, according to its nature and depth. It thus becomes capable of bearing teams and machinery, and its density is very considerably augmented.

10.—The Cutting of Peat.—a. Preparations.

In preparing to raise peat fuel from the bog, the surface material, which from the action of frost and sun has been pulverized to "muck," or which otherwise is full of roots and undecomposed matters, must be removed usually to the depth of 12 to 18 inches. It is only those portions of the peat which have never frozen nor become dry, and are free from coarse fibers of recent vegetation, that can be cut for fuel.

Peat fuel must be brought into the form of blocks or masses of such size and shape as to adapt them to use in our common stoves and furnaces. Commonly, the peat is of such consistence in its native bed, that it may be cut out with a spade or appropriate tool into blocks having more or less coherence. Sometimes it is needful to take away the surplus water from the bog, and allow the peat to settle and drain a while before it can be cut to advantage.