AND AN INSTRUCTION TO THE SECRETARY

August 31, 1921

Most Esteemed Vladimir Ilyich!

I take the liberty of taking up several minutes of your time on matters concerning Hydroturf.

important
To Smolyaninov in archive

??
doesn't ring true
??
?

With great satisfaction I am able to report that the question of dehydrating peat by factory method has been resolved by us in recent time in a completely indisputable manner, # moreover by the simplest means*, and now it is necessary to transition from laboratory setup to industrial production, that is, to build a factory. Simultaneously we have also managed to resolve the question of peat drying during the summer season, likewise by means of chemical action on hydraulic peat, with such a result that drying time is reduced by approximately half compared to before, and peat has ceased to fear rain. All of this represents very valuable acquisitions which can place peat extraction on a solid foundation and make peat what it ought to be — one of the most important types of fuel in Russia. In order to practically utilize all these achievements, we need food and money. Food is difficult to obtain, and I do not ask for it, but if you give us money — monetary signs in Russia for the purchase of food and the payment of workers, on the one hand, and a certain sum of foreign currency for purchases abroad of those machines which we cannot manufacture ourselves, on the other hand — then I undertake to construct by next season at "Elektroperedacha" the first experimental factory for peat dehydration, to test it during the season and then from next autumn we shall be in a position to set up peat extraction for 1923 on any scale corresponding to the means provided.

The most essential thing is that at the factory we shall obtain not peat bricks, but non-

* ? || we need only: 1) gypsum, 2) old iron filings.