[AT] Now smoldering peat

[charlie hill]

As for the money.   If there is any money to be made from this stuff no one 
around here seems to know it.  I've often wondered why no one tries.   A few 
years ago they built a strip shopping center with a Food Lion and 3 or 4 
smaller stores and a parking lot of about 10 acres on a piece of this peat 
land that had never been used for anything but holding the world together as 
far as I know.   The cut out 5 or 6 feet of peat.  They paid to haul some of 
it off and gave away as much as they could in dump truck loads.  Just show 
up with any size dump truck and they would load you up for free.  Then they 
hauled thousands of cubic yards of sand in to fill the hole and create a pad 
solid enough to put the stores and parking lot on.   There are thousands and 
thousands of acres of the stuff in coastal NC all the way from VA and down 
into SC.   There are places where the stuff is decayed enough that it has 
been turned into farm land and places where tree farms have been 
established.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Herbert Metz
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 8:29 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: [AT] Now smoldering peat



  "I'm about ready to do a hurricane dance and hope it puts  out that
damned 30,000 acres of smoldering peat".

Charlie; what is the origin of the peat.
Decades ago we lived half hour NE of Rock Island, IL.  Near us was a big
"U" shape (approx half mile wide and 20 miles long) in the Mississippi
River that got cut off and isolated during a flood.  This eventually dried
and became great farm land; one of the always present concerns was the
ground (decomposed trees, etc) catching on fire. Last time we visited it
was all being bagged and sold for big money

_______________________________________________
AT mailing list
http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at