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peat-earth is floated away by means of a stream of water; as de-tailed in the Agricultural Reports of Stirlingshire and Perthshire,which two counties meet in the rich and picturesque valley of theForth and Teith,
No. I .—Moss of Kippen. *
It is said, that Mr James Ure of Skirgarton, in the parish ofKippen, near Stilling, was the first person who conceived theidea of using a stream of water for floating off the peat-earth ormoss soil into the river Forth . About the year 1730, Mr Urefirst tried to carry off a small strip of his moss, by means of arivulet, which runs into the Forth. Finding this easily practica-ble, he entered into contract with his neighbour, Mr Edmon-stone of Broich, to carry in a stream of water upon their conti-guous properties in the moss; as, on account of the interferenceof their lands, and the necessity of having as high a level as pos-sible for the stream, the concurrence of that gentleman was in-dispensable.
The moss over all this neighbourhood consists ctf two distinctstrata, The upper stratum, or jlofw, is composed of a lightspongy mass of a whitish colour, five or six feet deep, being evi-dently an accumulation of sphagnum , comarum palustre, and o-ther coarse aquatic plants, which is entirely worthless either asfuel or manure. The next stratum is composed of a black com-pact peat-earth, about four or five feet thick, which, when dried,forms excellent peats for fuel, or, by mixture with clay or muck,may be convened into a valuable manure for clay soils. Belowthis stratum, a rich clay soil is found, which is precisely of thesame quality, and upon the same level with the adjacent carses.Messrs Ure and Edmonstone began their operations for clearingaway the moss, by removing the upper worthless stratum, whichwas floated down the stream of their joint rivulet into the riverForth. For this purpose a ditch was drawn around the wholearea intended to be removed, somewhat deeper than the Upperspongy stratum, so that the water of the rivulet might flow inthe compact stratum of black peat-earth. > Every person in theneighbourhood, who had occasion to procure peats for fuel fromthe moss, was under the necessity of devoting several days dur-ing winter and spring in throwing the upper stratum of lightspongy moss into the ditch provided for the stream of the rivulet,by which this worthless mass was floated off into the Forth.- c Bythis means a strip of ground, ten or fifteen feet broad, was an-nually cleared of the upper stratum around the whole area ofthe moss. The lower black stratum of compact peat-earth re-mained, from which the people of the neighbourhood dug their
* Fpr this previous portion of the subject, see Stirlingshire Rep. p. 235—240.