Product Description
In the years 1857 and 1858, the writer, in the capacity of Chemist to the State Agricultural Society of Connecticut, was commis.- sioned 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 I reland, 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 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 The great Dismal Swamp is a grand peat bog, and doubtless ottier of the swamps of the coast, as far south as Florida and the Gulf,
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don’t occur in the book.)