泥炭苔藓用于床上用品。
The discovery of peat moss and its possibilities is due to Professor Karl A. Zschoerner, of Vienna, Austria. It is a vegetable growth to be found in all European bogs, and lies on the top of the fuel peat. The Viennese professor, after subjecting it to the most painstaking microscopic investigation, discovered in it many valuable properties. The knowledge thus acquired has spread to this continent and been utilised by John E. Baker, a manufacturer of Mishawaka, Ind. He purchased ten acres of marshland near Garrett, which had heretofore been considered worthless. On it is a vast deposit of peat moss, which, however, differs from that of Europe in containing more of the black fuel peat. This Garrett bed is singular, in that it is the only one in the United States (so far as has been discovered up to this time) that consists entirely of the moss. I’he ten-acre tract was probed to a depth of seventytwo feet before gravel was struck. Dug out at the depth of forty-four feet, it will produce 66.000,000 tons of peat moss, and the supply in the Garrett field will, therefore, be seen to be ample for generations. Mr. Baker’s study of peat moss during the past three years is claimed to disprove the theory of the Vienna professor, that the peat fibres come from the remains of trees, reeds and grasses. Mr. Baker’s investigations show, that the moss is a growing vegetable, the buds and seeds of which are not carried away by the winds, hut simply droop at the end of the season and form the foundation for a new crop. I’he moss is self-propagating, and the numerous layers indicate, that it requires a term of 120 years to create one foot of moss deposit. This would indicate that the peat moss bed near Garrett has been in existence for thousands of years. In its submergence, the fibre suffers no structural change; but, there is a transformation in physical and chemical nature, l he organic substance becomes inorganic, so that nothing capable of fermentation or decay remains; yet the fibre remains intact. I’he moss grows in a water that is as pure as crystal and endowed with medicinal properties, which have just become known, and are now as much in demand by the people of Northern Indiana as were ever the products of widely advertised mineral springs. 1’hese valuable properties render peat moss at once an absorbent, an antiseptic, disinfectant and a deodoriser. It will absorb ten times its weight in fluids, besides destroying all bad smells and offering no attraction for vermin and flies. Its uses are manifold. Having ten times the absorbent power of straw, the new’ fibre is in great demand by breweries and other large establishments that employ many horses, and in use in the horse stalls of the New York city, South Bend, Ind., and other fire departments, where it is found to absorb the moisture and the smell, to give a healthy resilient footing for the horses, to keep away flies—the constant carriers of disease—and to preserve its antiseptic, disinfectant and deodorising qualities even after long usage. Its value as a fertiliser is also very great; indeed, so beneficial does it promise to be from a sanitary standpoint, that public boards of health in the country are investigating its use as a powerful w-eapon against the transmission of disease, and to recommend its employment in municipal fire and police stations.
