Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel

by Samuel W. Johnson

It is not depth simply, but age or advancement in decomposition, which determines these differences of texture.

The "ripest," most perfectly formed peat, that in which the peaty decomposition has reached its last stage,—which, in Germany, is termed pitchy-peat or fat peat, (Pechtorf, Specktorf)—is dark-brown or black in color, and comparatively heavy and dense. When moist, it is firm, sticky and coherent almost like clay, may be cut and moulded to any shape. Dried, it becomes hard, and on a cut or burnished surface takes a luster like wax or pitch.

In Holland, West Friesland, Holstein, Denmark and Pomerania, a so-called mud-peat (Schlammtorf, also Baggertorf and Streichtorf,) is "fished up" from the bottoms of ponds, as a black mud or paste, which, on drying, becomes hard and dense like the pitchy-peat.

The two varieties of peat last named are those which are most prized as fuel in Europe.

Vitriol peat is peat of any kind impregnated with sulphate of iron (copperas,) and sulphate of alumina, (the astringent ingredient of alum.)

Swamp Muck.—In New England, the vegetable remains occurring in swamps, etc., are commonly called Muck. In proper English usage, muck is a general term for manure of any sort, and has no special application to the contents of bogs. With us, however, this meaning appears to be quite obsolete, though in our agricultural literature—formerly, more than now, it must be admitted,—the word as applied to the subject of our treatise, has been qualified as Swamp Muck.

In Germany, peat of whatever character, is designated by the single word Torf; in France it is Tourbe, and of the same origin is the word Turf, applied to it in Great Britain. With us turf appears never to have had this signification.

Peat, no doubt, is a correct name for the substance which results from the decomposition of vegetable matters under or saturated with water, whatever its appearance or properties. There is, however, with us, an inclination to apply this word particularly to those purer and more compact sorts which are adapted for fuel, while to the lighter, less decomposed or more weathered kinds, and to those which are considerably intermixed with soil or silt, the term muck or swamp muck is given. These distinctions are not, indeed, always observed, and, in fact, so great is the range of variation in the quality of the substance, that it would be impossible to draw a line where muck leaves off and peat begins. Notwithstanding, a rough distinction is better than none, and we shall therefore employ the two terms when any greater clearness of meaning can be thereby conveyed.

It happens, that in New England, the number of small shallow swales, that contain unripe or impure peat, is much greater than that of large and deep bogs. Their contents are therefore more of the "mucky" than of the "peaty" order, and this may partly account for New England usage in regard to these old English words.

By the term muck, some farmers understand leaf-mold (decayed leaves), especially that which collects in low and wet places. When the deposit is deep and saturated with water, it may have all the essential characters of peat. Ripe peat, from such a source is, however, so far as the writer is informed, unknown to any extent in this country. We might distinguish as leaf-muck the leaves which have decomposed under or saturated with water, retaining the well established term leaf-mold to designate the dry or drier covering of the soil in a dense forest of deciduous trees.