into the Nature of Peat -moss. 433

aifo manure to arable lands, inftead of abftrafting it from them.Nor need this wafte of mofs be regretted. Its defefts, as a fubjeftof cultivation for the production of ufeful vegetables, have been al-ready noticed. Neither is it better qualified for a fubfoil. It nei-ther pofiefles the property of an impervious fubfoil, to preferve themoifturc from finking in a dry fummer, nor that of an open one, tolet the excefs of water pafs downwards in a wet summer.

Query 6 th. Is the cinder, or scorched part of peat, solublein water ?

Answer. Though no means have yet been discovered of mak-ing the cinder of perfect wood, pit coal, &c, soluble, the cinderof peat-moss and other plants of a feeble stem is of a differentnature. The result of the experiment recorded at the close ofthis I»quiry, of two flower-pots filled with the same earth, intoone of which a quantity of peat cinder was mixed, and was moreproductive than the other, shows plainly, that the cinder dissolved,and nourished the plants which grew upon it. The experimentwas indeed conducted under unfavourable circumstances; but asthese circumstances were the same for the plants in both flower-pots, the result is not the less decisive. The instance mentionedin the answer to the third query, where the spots in a moss whichhad been scorched by heaps of turf being burnt on them, weremuch more productive than the ground around them, is an ad-ditional proof of the solubility of moss cinder. Other proofsmight be adduced ; but perhaps the following, from Mr Nais-mith’s Essay , repeatedly cited, may suffice. Having burnt aquantity of peats, he separated, the cinder from the ashes, byplunging both in a vessel of water; and having put equal quan.tities into the midst of two flower-pots filled with river sand, hefound that the plant on the cinder grew with far greater luxu-riance than that on the ashes.