Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1911-07-28
FARM WITH DYNAMITE
Said to- be the Cheapest
Mode Of Clearing a..

for farm purposes at the J.. K. Martin
farm, east OF the city. We publish the
following by Samuel Wesley Long, as
it will be Of interest in this connec:
tion: 81 :: >&. .. '@8S5sl Il
=: 10 say that a farmer can lift the
mortgage on his farm with dynamite is
not joke, but fact. And one that
will spell independence to thousands
Of land owners whose cultivatable fields
are carrying q double burden of taxes
that which legitlmateiy belongs to
the productive soil, and that which is
being paid on land rendered uncui-
tivatable by the presence of stumps,
boulders. hardpan, etc.
The use of dynamite on the farm,
or, as it has been so aptly called,
farming with dynamite" has passed
the experimental stages, and is now as
much q part Of modern farm practice
as is'' scientific farming, or the use
of power machinery.
Contrary to general belief, the use of
dynamite, at least, the brands man
ufacured especially for farm purposes,
is safer than the handling of ordinary
gunpowder. The prejudice against
dynamite is largely due to the some
what frequent explosions of dynamite
factories. Invariably these accidents
happen during the process of making
the explosive, and are never caused by
the finished product.
The few cases of injury of users of
exception, been caused by the fool
hardy action of the victims inspecting
the charge Immediately upon It's fail
ure to explode. The advice Of experts
is: II dynamite fails to explode, go
away and come back next week..
While this is not to be taken literally,
in so far as the period of time is con-
cerned, it does point the way to posi-
tive prevention of accidents.
The use of dynamite in farming is
extremely simple and requires but the
intelligence to follow few clear
directions, which information, in the
form of illustrated booklets, is supplied
free by makers Of dynamite.
While the cost of performing the
various operations of stump and boulder
blasting. ditch digging. subsoil
'plowing,' hardpan blasting, etc.,
varies with conditions, it is in every
case decidedly lower than the cost of
accomplishing the same results by
manual labor or with mechanical ap-
pliances.
The Long Island, New York. rail-
road company removed one hundred
stumps from its Experimental Farm at
an average cost Of but sixteen cents
each, including dynamite, blasting
caps and fuse. Ordinarily the pulling
OF these stumps would have required
three men and two horses thirty three
days. One dynamiter and a helper
blasted one hundred and fifty seven
stumps in a single day.
Other records show the removal of
seven hundred and sixty eight SOUTH
era pine stumps, of an average
diameter of twenty-nine inches at a
cost of thirty cents each.
Subsoil ''plowing" or breaking up
of the lower layers of earth, results, In
many instances, IN almost doubling the
productiveness of farm lands, for the
simple reason that the natural plant
food in the lower strata is made avail
able and largely increased water
storage is created. This also aerates
the soil. The blasting of hardpan
produces equally beneficial results.
The manifold uses of dynamite fol
farm purposes are being universally
recognized and are being developed by
the United States Government, agricul-
tural colleges, the great railroads and
other agencies interested in making
farms more productive and the work Of
the farmers easier.