Improvement of peaty soils

1229. 'When the surface of peat lands' Morton observes, 'is pared off and burnt and pulverised by the influence of the frost, it becomes a soft black soil, composed entirely of vegetable matter with oxide of iron and the tannin principle intimately blended through the mass;' and when this is mixed with clay it becomes one of the 'most productive of all soils.' (Morton on the Nature and Property of Soils, p. 19.)