THE USE OF EXPLOSIVES IN FARMING.
It is not generally known to what a great extent explosives are now used in farming. As a matter of fact, however, no progressive and up-to-date farmer would think of trying to get along without them. Their use heretofore has been chiefly for blasting stumps and boulders when clearing new land and greater quantities are used every year for this purpose as the demand or farm products increases and forests are cut down for lumber. The value of explosives for blasting rock met with in digging wells, drains, ditches, cellars, etc., is understood by all farmers. Experiments have recently shown that an entirely new application for explosives will practically revolutionise farming in some places and will have a great influence on condition and cost of crops rlrnost everywhere. This new idea is to use explosives to loosen up the earth to a greater depth than plowing will do and in this way to make more rocm for plant and tree rcct3 to expand, enable the ground to absorb a greater quantity of moisture and retain it
longer, to dispose cf surplus Eurt'sce water by making it possible for it to
sink deeper into lh3 ground, and to lift up the lower soils so thai the tree and plant roots can benefit by any nourishing properties which they :i:ay contai; 1 , This blasting also detroys all grubs ar.d eggs cf insect?. When land is underlaid by a stratum of hard sub soil commonly known as hard par, treatment with explosives is indispensable in order to make it produce as it shoul 1 and a pieat deal of land which until lately as considered worthless 1 been transformed into excellent farms by the application tt this principle. The du Pont company has offered every assistance to fa'men?, agricultural colleges ard othcr3 in terested in this work and has had experts in the use of explosives made a careful study ot the plan and demonstrate in many places its proper application. The depth and thickness of the hard pan influence this placing of holes for explos'ves ar.d the quantity required for each charge, but generally the holes should bj p-ifc down with a crowbar or au?ur fifteen or twenty feit apart and just though the hard pan. A halfpound or pound of du Pont Forcite or Gelignite should be used for charge, The application of this prinicipla to the cultivation of fruit tree?, has also given wonderful 'results. In order to keep an orchard in best condition it is advisable to explode a charge of about a pound of du Pont Gelignite or Forcite four cr five feet below the surface and midway between the tree?, every year or two.
The E I. du Poi.t de Nemours Powder company, Wilmington, Del., US.A.,, has made a careful study of both of these uses for explosives and has also done considerable experimenting. They will ba very glad to give details to anyone who may desire to write them in regard to them.
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Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10033, 2 May 1910, Page 7
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503THE USE OF EXPLOSIVES IN FARMING. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10033, 2 May 1910, Page 7
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