Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and FuelJohnson, Samuel W. (Samuel William)
Science
Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel
Johnson, Samuel W. (Samuel William)
Fertilizers; Fuel; Peat
Siemens, Professor of Technology, in the Agricultural Academy, at
Hohenheim, successfully applied the following mode of preparing peat for
the Beet Sugar Manufactory at Boeblingen, near Hohenheim, in the year
1857. Much of the peat there is simply cut and dried in the usual
manner. There is great waste, however, in this process, owing to the
frequent occurrence of shells and clay, which destroy the coherence of
the peat. Besides, a large quantity of material accumulates in the
colder months, from the ditches which are then dug, that cannot be
worked in the usual manner at that time of the year. It was to economize
this otherwise useless material that the following process was devised,
after a failure to employ Challeton's method with profit.
In the first place, the peat was dumped into a boarded cistern, where it
was soaked and worked with water, until it could be raised by a chain of
buckets into the pulverizer.
The pulverization of the peat was next effected by passing it through a
machine invented by Siemens, for pulping potatoes and beets. This
machine, (the same we suppose as that described and figured in Otto's
Landwirthschaftliche Gewerbe), perfectly breaks up and grates the peat
to a fine pulp, delivers it in the consistency of mortar into the
moulds, made of wooden frames, with divisions to form the peats. The
peat-paste is plastered by hand into these moulds, which are immediately
emptied to fill again, while the blocks are carried away to the drying
ground where they are cured in the ordinary style without cover.
In this simple manner 8 men were able to make 10,000 peats daily, which,
on drying, were considerably denser and harder than the cut peat.
The peat thus prepared, cost about one-third more than the cut peat.
Siemens reckoned, this greater cost would be covered by its better
heating effect, and its ability to withstand transportation without
waste by crumbling.
b. _Condensation of fibrous peat._
_Weber's method._
At Staltach, in Southern Bavaria, Weber has established an extensive
peat works, of which Vogel has given a circumstantial account.[24] The
peat at Staltach is very light and fibrous, but remarkably free from
mineral matters, containing less than 2 _per cent._ of ash in the
perfectly dry substance. The moor is large, (475 acres), and the peat is
from 12 to 20 feet in depth. The preparation consists in converting the
fresh peat into pulp or paste, forming it into moulds and drying it; at
first by exposure to the air at ordinary temperature, and finally, by
artificial heat, in a drying house constructed for the purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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