The advice has been given to those who wish to make something out of their peat-mosses, that their best course is just to let them alone, as the more they are interfered with, the greater the loss will be; but this Lord Melbourne ‘Why-can’t-you-let-it-alone’ way of treating every subject may be occasionally overdone. The writer having of late years been utilising the peat on his farm, and being greatly satisfied with the result, now ventures to give a short sketch of his operations. He has a small hill-farm, where, in byres[1] and covered closes, he winters a breeding-stock of about fifty cattle, of different ages, and having only, on an average, about forty acres in white-crop; and as straw in the neighbourhood is difficult to buy, he was occasionally pinched both for fodder and bedding. For reasons which need not here be stated, he does not wish to diminish the number of the cattle so wintered. This being the state of matters, and being exercised how to make his fodder and bedding last through the winter, it occurred to the writer that he might greatly economise his bedding, and so the more easily get over the winter, were he to use a quantity of peat in the closes and byres. He happens to be favourably situated, having an abundant supply of peat of a fine grain within a short distance of the steading. The cost of cutting and bringing a fair cartload—about fifteen hundredweight—to the steading he calculates at about sixpence. Thus, by putting on three carts, three men, and a boy—two of these cutting and filling, and two going with the carts—he can deliver at the peat-shed about forty-five carts per day, or about thirty-five tons. As the bog grows good grass, the turf is lifted, and is relaid on the lower level. In this way the carts can in dry weather be backed up to the face of the peat. The peat-harvest is commenced after the turnips are in, as not only the horses have then little work to do, but especially as at that time of the year the bog and its approaches are dry. He has then fully two hundred and fifty loads taken from the bog. A portion is heaped up at the back of a wall near the steading, for use in autumn and early winter; but the greater part is stored in sheds. Being thus stored and kept dry, and exposed as much as possible to the summer sun and winds, it forms, when put into the closes, a dry comfortable bed for the cattle, and acts as a sponge, absorbing the liquid manure, and thus storing away the ammonia. Further, as in some places the bog is too soft for carts to go into, the writer, each summer and autumn, has some two hundred tons harrowed out on to hard ground, piled into as high a heap as possible, and allowed to remain until the following summer, when it is found to be dry, and easily carted. The cost of such wheeling-out is about fivepence per ton.