AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND PROCESS FOR TREATING PEAT AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBRES TO BE USED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR STRAW IN STABLES, FARMYARDS, AND OTHER PLACES, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF MANURE
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Augustus London at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st October 1881.
JOSEPH AUGUSTUS LONDON, of 40, Southampton Buildings, in the County of
Middlesex. "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND PROCESS FOR TREATING PEAT
AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBRES TO BE USED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR STRAW IN
STABLES, FARMYARDS, AND OTHER PLACES, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
MANURE."
My Invention relates to a novel method of treating and utilizing fibrous peat
and fibrous vegetable matter of analogous character, so that it can be used as a
substitute for straw as litter for horses and other animals in stables, farmyards, and
places of the like kind; and subsequently, when mixed or saturated with animal
matter, as a manure.
I use peat of as fibrous a nature as is conveniently possible, such as is abundant
in Dartmoor and other beds of mossy peat, and I cut or slice off the upper layer
of earthy or impure vegetable matter to a sufficient depth, and I then remove the
fibrous and porous peat which is found beneath such upper layer. I remove such
fibrous peat in blocks or sections of convenient size, and I press it by means of
hydraulic or other suitable pressing machinery until the principal part of the
moisture which it contains has been expelled. I then take the fibrous peat thus
partially dried, and I disintegrate and tear or beat it, preferably by means of
machinery or apparatus of any of the kinds ordinarily used for such purpose, in
order that the fibres of which it is composed may be separated and made distinct,
without which the material would not be applicable as litter with comfort to the
horses or cattle using it.
I then dry the clean fibrous material thus prepared, either in the open air or in
stoves, ovens, or kilns of any ordinary kind, and when dry I press it into bales or
trusses by hydraulic or other power, in which form it can be readily and cheaply
transported, and I use it, either alone or mixed with straw, as a litter in stables
and farmyards instead of straw, sawdust, or other materials now ordinarily used.
The material prepared in the manner and for the purpose described is very
absorbent and takes up readily the liquid and other animal substances used as

page_text: manures, so that when removed from the stable or farmyard after having been so
used and saturated, it forms an admirable manure. It is very wholesome and
clean, and considerable economy is effected by its use as described instead of straw,
which has not the absorbent capability of the peat fibre treated and used as
described, but only after a long process of decomposition and saturation becomes
sufficiently combined with animal matter to constitute a valuable manure.
Peat of the kind described contains naturally tannic acid, which precipitates the
ammonia in the animal matters from which the manure is formed, and so increases
the value of the latter.
Disinfectants, liquid or solid, or other therapeutic substances may be added to
the peat prepared as described before it is used.