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BOUT 400,000,000 acres of land
included in farms throughout
the United States are unim-
proved. Figuring that each
acre could be made to produce at least
$25 worth of produce per year, there
is approximately $10,000,000,000 pro-
duction being lost annually, Quite a
tidy figure. And when we take into
consideration that in many cases it re-
quires only the removal of sundry
stumps and boulders to make this land
profitable, it certainly looks as though
something might be done to save the
waste. “Stumping with dynamite” is
both an economical, quick and labor
saving method as well as one that is
growing in popularity daily.
The method involved in the blasting
of a stump is to confine a quantity of
explosive in such a manner that when
:
the stump out of the ground. To se-
cure best results the charge should be
placed in the soil well under the base
of the stump at the point where the
resistance offered to the force of the
explosion will be equa! on all sides.
Where the soil is of a heavy clay or
plastic nature a slow acting powder is
preferable, such as farm powder or
stumping powder. Where the earth is
sandy or loose and is apt to permit
the easy escape of gases a fast explo-
sive, such as 40 to 60 per cent dyna-
mite should be used. The condition of
the soil with respect to moisture also
has a great influence upon the amount
of work that a certain quantity of pow-
der will do. After heavy rains when
the soil is saturated to the base of the
stump and the subsvil is just damp is
a most favorable condition.
No set rules as to the amount of
exploded the expanding gases will lift
Straightening Streams
With Dynamite
The ancient Egyptians were noted
for their crops because, as history
states, they ‘sowed their seeds in the
Nile.” This does not mean that they
actually cast the seed in the river. At
certain seasons of the year the Nile
overflows its banks, depositing on either
shore a rich silt or earth that is highly
conducive to bumper crops, and the
wise ancient Egyptians, realizing this,
profited thereby.
Water is a necessity. The tiniest
brooks up to the largest rivers play an
important part in the scheme of things
inasmuch as they are nature's way of
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Diagram oi Stream Troubles That May
Be Corrected by Blasting.
both irrigation and drainage. But be-
ing formed according to nature's dic-
tates their courses do not always jibe
with man’s desires or needs.
Rock ledges impede their progress.
Overhanging stumps and trees retard
powder necessary to blast a certain
kind or size of stump can be given,
since different conditions govern ali
cases. T'wo stumps of the same size,
kind and age of cut, when one is grown
on well drained soil where the roots
must penefrite a great depth for water
and the other is grown on soil where
there is always water near the surface,
will demand different treatment for
extraction. The older stumps, especial-
ly if from timber free from resin, re-
quire less powder. The exact amount
necessary for set conditions can, how-
ever, be readily determined with a lit-
tle experimenting.
Few tools and supplies are required.
A one and one-half inch wood auger
with a shank about four and one-half
feet long, a medium sized crowbar. a
round pointed shovel and a wooden
tamping stick, together with the pow-
der, fuse and caps, will scrve to fill
the bill
ab
their flow. Numerous irregularities
i
ISE farmers are beginning to
realize that a farm goes
farther than length and
breadth. Depth is a vital
factor, and incidentally this third di-
mension has a clearly identified influ-
ence upon the producing value of the
earth's surface.
Thus “vertical farming,” a ncwer
method of agriculture, is rapidly de-
veloping. Merely to scrape the bris-
tles from a hog's hide is not enough.
Deeper cutting is essential in order to
reach the bacon. And experience has
shown that to simply plow or turn the
top soil is very often only the scratch-
ing of the surface when it comes to
bumper crops.
Often the productivity of a farm is
limited by the tight clay or hard pan
underlying the top soil. Costly imple-
ments for tilling this upper soil and
ea us ONE So PL Swe lS ale
AN UNPROFITABLE STUMP CWERED FIELD _J “nt way (EN MONTHS AFTER $800 WORTH OF CELERY PER ACRE
Getting the Dollar From Under the Stump Deepening the Farm For Bigger Crops
How Up to Date Farmers Are Easily and Economically Realizin
g The Third Dimension of the Farm an Important Factor to Greater
on Land Hitherto Impossible of Cultivation. |
| Crops and Bigger Dividends.
taking care of increased horizontal or
surface acreage are all right in their
way, but to go deeper into the farm,
to increase its fertility and productive-
ness by increasing its depth, is a mat-
ter that the practice of vertical farm-
ing accomplishes quick!y and econom-
ically, and very often a single car-
tridge of explosive will convert several
yards of otherwise useless subsoil into
half an acre of new root feeding sur-
face. Thus, instead of spreading out
and embracing more territory, vertical
farming enables the farmer to really
concentrate and by intensive methods
conserves in both labor and expense.
At the same time the resulting in-
crease in crops emphasizes the profit-
able features of the process.
And there is a practical reason for
this. By breaking up the subsoil oxy-
gen is admitted into the ground, and
the pent up natural fertilizing elements
cause them to meander about in i) Blasting (Ground For Tree Planting
parently wasteful ways, and man's
carelessness has added to these trou-
bles by allowing driftwood and loose
earth to form dams and sandbars.
All of these things help to hold the
flood of waters back and cause either |
flooding ox swamps, which not only oc-
cupy land that could be more profitably
used for farming, but also form fine
breeding places for mosquitoes and
other obnoxious pests. Incidentally
they cause an annual loss running into
millions of dollars per year.
In this day of enlightenment such
things are both wasteful and, one |
might add, criminal, especially so in |
view of the fact that almost instant |
relief may be had by a few well placed
charges of dynamite, Not only will!
these blasts straighten out the Kinks |
and bends nnd remove ledges and
sand bars, but they will deepen an: im
prove the channels as nature has real.
ly intended. Incidentally by straight
1
ening the winding course of a creek
much area of tillable land can be ob.
tained and farm operation in many n
stances made much easier .
Digging a Ditch ln a Flash
Things move quickly nowadays. The
village of yesterday is. tomorrow's
metropolis. Speed is a requisite, and
newer methods that smack of rapidi-
ty and labor and money saving are in
demand.
Ditches that once consumed many
days of hand or machine labor are now
being blasted out in almost the twin-
kling of an eye. By degrees man is
learning to adopt some of nature’s sim-
ple, but mighty forces. And the gul-
* lies and valleys that old Mother Earth
has created by her natural upheavals
and eruptions are being duplicated in
a smaller way by some of the more
progressive and up to date farmers.
Digging ditches with dynamite is
simply a newer and more improved
method of trench building. The meth-
od employed in wet work is simply to
punch holes from eighteen to twenty-
four inches deep along the line desired
to ditch and then load each hole with
a charge of 50 per cent straight dyna-
mite,
Long stretches of ditch can be loaded
and fired at one time. One cap placed
Loading.
in a cartridge of dynamite in the mid-
dle hole of the line of charged holes and
fired will do the work.
A single row of holes can usually be
depended upon to excavate a ditch from
seven to nine feet wide and about thir-
ty to forty inches deep. Where larger
ditches are required the holes can be
made deeper and loaded heavier, or
two or more lines of holes, spaced from
three to four feet apart, can he used.
Incidentally the holes can be made in
the roughest kind of swamp or in flood
muck beds, where other methods of
ditching are practically impossible.
When the soil is dry or the weather
is too cold to use the propagated meth-
od of blasting described above low
freezing farm or stumping powder is
used in holes spread farther apart,
often in large ditches as far as four
or five feet. In this case each hole
must be primed with an electric cap.
as the explosive shock will not propa-
gate in dry ground.
The cheapest lineal foot of small
ditch is obtained by using the électric
firing method and farm or stumping
powder.
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The Ditch.
: BLASTING DITCHES THROUGH SWAMP.
Much has been written on how to
plant a tree or trees, but if the experi-
ences of scores of famous orchardists
have any weight on the topic, then the
practice of using dynamite preliminary:
to planting young trees has fully
proved its merits.
The writer has personally seen spe-
cific examples of the value and excel-
lence of tree planting with dynamite
on a private orchard in Delaware, the
oo
Ww 7,
RE FILLED.
difference in growth between the un-
dynamited tree and the tree planted
in blasted ground being so unmistak-
ably in favor of the latter that no ad-
equate comparison could be made.
Furthermore, there are so many sane
and logical reasons for this method of
tree planting that even the most skep-
tical could not fail to be convinced.
Obviously when a tree has to use a
large part of its energies in forcing its
roots through the hard soil it can-
not be expected to make the same
rapid growth and come into such
THE BLAST THOROUGHLY CRACKS THE SOIL, BUT USUALLY
LEAVES A CAVITY OR POTHOLE AT THE BOTTOM — THIS MUST
THE ROOTS ARE FIRMLY EMBEDDED IN RICH TOPSOIL, SURROUNDED
BY MELLOW, WELL
early bearing as a tree would that had
had the ground in which it was planted
thoroughly prepared by dynamiting be-
| forehand.
No tree should be, planted over hard-
pan or impacted subsoil without first
resorting to blasting, so that the soil
may be made open and porous. Such
blasting not only creates channels, in-
creases absorption of soil moisture and
permits deeper rooting, but it also in-
duces better growth and larger yields.
Blasting for tree planting is best done
in the fall, because at this time of the
year it is easier to catch the subsoil
in dry condition. Blasting in the spring
for spring planting, however, is much
better than planting in dug holes, not-
withstanding the fact that the subsoil
is apt to be wet or damp.
If the holes are blasted in advance of
the time of setting the trees they are
left without further attention until
tree planting time, unless it is desir- |
able to add some manure or fertilizer |
to be diffused through the soil. This |
is an excellent practice, especially in |
poor soil. If t"~ earth is sour, sticky |
clay a few pounds of lime scattered in
the hole will materially assist in floe- |
culating the clay and keeping it per- |
manently granulated and sweet.
Immediately after the blast the soft :
blasted ground should be dug out down '
to the location of the charge, where
a hole will usually be found about 3
the size of a bushel basket. This
DRAINED SUBSOIL.
must be filled to prevent settling of the
tree after planting. The roots should be
Placed in a natural position in good top
soil, covered with more top soil and
treaded down firm. The hole can then
be filled to u little above the surface
with subsoil.
The fact that nearly all commercial
orchardists use this method proves
that it pays in reduced first year logs,
earlier fruiting and larger and better
yields.
; od in itself is very simple.
Burrowers-=-Beware!
Gophers and prairie dogs are the
bane of western farmers, while in the
east woodchucks are the type of bur-
rowing animals that cause the tillers i
of the soil to forget some of the things
the dominie tells them on Sundays.
Don Leonardo Ruiz, a California
rancher, says “dynamite is the proper
medicine to give. ground squirrels. go- |
phers, prairie dogs. etc.”
Take an inch and a
inches of dynamite.
cloth or several thicknesses of paper
to form a small round cartridge. Tie
the cloth or paper firmly about one
end of a piece of fuse twelve or four-
teen inches long, but do not use a cap.
Insert one of these charges well into
the mouth of every hole and pack
loose dirt around the fuse. leaving
enough of the end outside to light eas-
ily. Light the fuse and =o on to the
next hole. There will be no explosion.
There being no cap or other deto-
nator. the dynamite will simply burn.
filling the hole with dense, poisonous
fumes that will almost instantly stifle
and then kill every living thing inside.
half or two
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of the lower soils are released and
utilized. A reservoir for the storage of
water is created, and a good home for
the roots is produced. Good recots
are essential to good plants. Men
who look below the surface realize -
these facts. They know also that a
plant produces only in proportion to’
the extent of air, water and nourish-
ment given its roots. Thus is the new-
er method of vertical farming both
logical and profitable.
This method of farming vertically is
in itself easy, simple and labor saving.
A half cartridge charge of farm pow-
der placed well down into the tight
subsoil at intervals of about a rod,
tamped properly and fired carefully
will do the work quickly and econom-
ically. Subsoil blasting, however, can
be done successfully only when the
subsoil is dry. 3
Put it in a bit of |
Few tools are required for the work.
Explosives In Road Building
One of the newer methods of road
building that is fast winning the in-
| dorsement of the better versed contrac-
tor is that of employing dynamite for
i reducing the heavy work.
| Grading through hard ground or rock,
| for instance, is tedious and requires
| time and labor. The use of dynamite
| for blasting such material is a welcome
| relief. Both rock and hard clay may
be loosened in the cut by well placed
charges of explosives if holes are drill-
ed into the ground a little way up the
bank and loaded. Careful spacing and
loading for electrically fired blasts will
result in bringing down both classes of
materials in the best possible manner.
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i In loosening suitie and rock to tacili-
| tate hand or steam shovel work dyna-
| mite is also very effective, while stumps
may be blasted from the roadbed just
as though they were being removed
from a field to be cleared and cultivated,
| suitable loading and when of hard rock
may be crushed into surfacing stone.
The side ditches as well as the long
outfall ditches ¢an also be blasted in
keeping with the nature of the ground.
In fact. there are no limits practically
dynamite for road building when care-
ful and thoughtful attention is given
i to the work.
Incidentally the planting of shade
trees for roadside improvement asd at-
tractiveness is greatly facilitated by
It is a recognized fact that trees plant-
ed in blasted holes grow much more
than those planted in the average spade
dug ground.
Priming a Dynamite Cartridge
To properly prime a dynamite or
farm powder cartridge four things are
essential—the cap, the fuse, the car-
tridge and a crimping tool. The meth-
First crimp the priming cap about
the fuse, using the crimping tool as
Crimping the Cap to the Fuse.
shown in the illustration. Next punch
a diagonal hole in the cartridge with
the end of the crimping tool, making
the hole deep enough to entirely bury
the cap. Insert the cap into this hole
and tie the fuse to the side of the car-
Making Cap Hole In Cartridge.
tridge securely with a stout piece of
cord.
If the job is done carefully and cor-
rectly the entire outfit will look like
illustration No. 4, and the priming will
be complete.
Ignorance, faar or carelessness are
the causes of most accidents. There
is no immediate danger in bandling a
stick of farm powder if the user will
use but an ordinary amount of care
and intelligence.
A common incorrect method of prim-
ing is to punch a hole right through
the cartridge, pass the capped fuse
Tying Fuse and Cap to Cartridge.
through it, then insert in another diag-
onal hole below the first hole. No ty-
ing is necessary to hold the cap in the
cartridge. This method is called “lac-
ing the fuse through the cartridge.”
It is unsafe and unreliable. The fuse:
is likely to break at the sharp turns.
and the powder train spit fire through.
The Finished Cartridge—Primed.
the break, setting fire to the cartridge
instead of exploding it, or the fuse
may miss fire altogether, leaving an
unexploded charge in the hole, or it
may hang fire for half an hour or hglf
a day and cause a serious accident.
Short cuts do not pay in handling ex-
plosives.
Boulders also are easily shattered by ,
to the many uses and advantages of -
the judicious use of a little dynamite.
rapidly and progress more favorably .
Som”