File:Intensive farming and use of dynamite (1911) (14758513705).jpg

Identifier: intensivefarming00penn (find matches)
Title: Intensive farming and use of dynamite
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Pennsylvania railroad company. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Explosives
Publisher: (Philadelphia, Pa.) The Pennsylvania railroad
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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le. The explosion of this charge breaks up the hardsoil below the roots of the tree, so that it can hold a greater quantityof moisture, which the tree roots will take up as they require it. Thebeneficial results from this blasting may not appear in the next crop,but will be manifest in succeeding ones for many years. When breaking up hardpan between the trees in the Californiaorange groves, it is the custom to bore down with an auger justthrough the hardpan—usually about four feet below the surface.This hole is sprung or chambered with one-half of a 1^4 ^ 8-inch cartridge of stumping powder (10 per cent.), and then, afterbeing loaded with about one and a half pounds of low powder, andwell tamped, is blasted. If the soil is inclined to be swampy, heavier charges, explodeddeeper in the ground, will break up the lower impervious stratum,and permit the surplus water to sink into the earth, where it willbe conserved, and afterwards given up to the roots of the trees asthey require it. 73
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PREPARING THE LAND FOR CROPS An example of the great benefit derived from the use of ex-plosives, for excavating the holes in which young trees are to beplanted, was recently brought to our attention by a well-known fruitgrower, who reported that he planted nine peach trees a few yearsago to determine positively whether anything was to be gained byusing dynamite. Three of the trees were planted in holes madeby drilling a two-inch auger hole three to four feet deep, and ex-ploding a charge of dynamite in the bottom; the other six trees wereplanted in holes of the regulation size dug by hand. Three yearslater the three trees which had been planted in the blasted holeswere strong and healthy, and produced between five and six bushelsof very fine peaches; but the other six trees, planted on the sameground without blasting, bore practically no peaches at all, bothfruit and leaves having shrivelled up and dropped off during thedry season. A similar experience was that of a Western farmer, w

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