Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1912-11-13

stock was held, but you never could
buy a barrel or a bushel to burn In
your W house and people who were
hoping for cheap fuel were told Of
high-class hotel keepers who stood
ready to order the pressed peat at
$12 alton, to burn in select guest
chambers. 1t came round years af-
ter that the eminent civil and mining
engineers who were consulted de-
clared the peat along Purgatory
Brook was first rate, and plenty Of 1t,
but |, was a manufacture for the flu
ture.
To-day the strain Is to save every
farthing possible on fires, whether
Of coal, gas or kerosene stove. This
bog, which begins with Purgatory
Brook, contains $500 acres of the
finest fuel in nature, and this bed Of
peat runs from four feet deep at the
borders to thirty feet deep in the
middle, over which farmers cut hay
and drive loaded wagons. And there
are few townships in Eastern Massa-
chusetts which have not enough of
such peat beds to serve their people
for generations. Peat is a democratic
fuel, and 1t is easier to cut it out of
the bog and dry it than to cut trees
from your own wood lot, season and
split the wood. A good peat bed cuts
X cheese and works enough easier
than trenching garden beds. A mans
work digging peat averages ten tons
a day OF the wet stuff. Then all that
IS necessary to fit 1t for firing Is to
dry 1T on the bank for three weeks,
or six, according to weather, turning
it one or more times in the process,
and piling 1t V-shape to let the air
pass through freely.
The dry peat wants less kindling
than a wood fire. A Goa CRATE Is the
better for a piece Of thick wire net
ting laid inside the bars, to keep the
turf from falling through, just as it
Is needed when o undertake to
have a little wood fire, early autumn
evenings. Set two pieces of peat to-
gether, tent shape, with a few pine
bits under 1t, and it burns like wood
dipped in kerosene, only it doesn't
go out SO soon. Miss Mann, for a
generation town librarian in Ded-
ham, used to tell how good families
In her girlhood always laid in moss
peat Tor invalids' and old folks fires,
because 1T kept such steady, mellow
heat aii-ni5ht long. The good houses
in England pile peat turves, not the
briquetlcs, with the beech and oak
billets II logs in the splendid old
carved freplaces Of stately drawing
rooms, because the peat makes a
softer, more lasting heat than wood
or coal. And one hears Of the rich
est folk in New York or, indeed, in
all American society, who import
their peat by shipload from the other
side to burn in Fifth venue chateaus.
Peat, burning, sends AN aroma like
campfres through the house. Hence
the common peat Is the fuel for stu
do fires and household CRATES, with
people who know things. Up in Ver-
mont, when a farmer wants money,
he takes a load Of dry peat to the
next market town and sells it Off
hand, to housekeepers and the stray
artists and author folk who linger in
the hill-towns till December. One
and four fifths Of a ton of dry peat
Is estimated to equal a ton Of coal
for neat. with this difference, that
one-ffth to one-third Of a ton of coal
is ash and cinders, which waste so
much heating power, while good peat
does not allow a single clinker from
an evenings fre.
Four years ago the abandoned
works on this same Purgatory bog
were set going by a firm Of father
and son, who made b]riquettes and
sold them by wagon up and down,
from Norwood to Hyde Park, at a
cost of less than IS a ton, people
wanting more and ever more Of them
for house use. Then one of the
steam boilers exploded, and the bust
ness was abandoned again. Still
there is the bog with millions Of tons
of blessed fuel under it's heritage,
and, incidentally, millions of money
for those who send the firing to those
who sorely want and need it.
Wine Of Cardui recommended and
sold by NoIman's Drug Store. adv.