232 NORTHEAST EXPERIMENT FARM. 
a crowbar, or preferably a dirt augur. The amount depends 
upon the size and kind of stump, but four sticks will split up 
a very large pine stump, and one stick or one-half pound will 
take out a good sized poplar. Too much as well as too little 
can be used, and for economic work the dynamite should 
never be entirely depended on but used in connection with 
the stump puller or block and line. Ifa good, small or me- 
dium stump puller can be afforded it is probably the cheap- 
est method and requires less labor than the block and line. 
The method employed must be determined by means, circam- 
stances and judgment. The cost of pulling, piling and burn- 
ing the stumps will vary between wide limits, depending on 
the thickness of the timber, the soil, age of stumps, kind and 
size, but in no case will it be low where the land was heavily 
timbered. A hard wood piece, mostly poplar, very thick, 
with about ten small standing pines per acre, was stumped 
with block and line, piled and burned, for $19.00 per acre, 
which did not include the removal of the brush and logs. 
Six acres heavy tamarac cost forstumping by hand and with 
block $18.60 per acre. Heavy pine cannot be stumped for 
much less than $25.00 to $30.00 per acre, using dynamite 
and stump pullers, while some lands covered sparsely with 
second growth hardwood, as poplar, may be stumped for 
from $6.00 to $10.00 per acre. 
Breaking is best done in June or early July. The roots of 
the brushand wild plants at this period have very little food 
stored up and die, while in the fall they are well stocked with 
food and will sprout and grow in the spring if there isa 
chance. It will not often pay to backset as with prairie sod, 
as the furrow is necessarily uneven from roots and inequali- 
ties in the surface and will be turned ratherdeep. It may be 
worked down on the surface in the following spring, and 
planted to potatoes, cornfodder or oats. With early plow- 
ing, especially on soil that has been mellowed by pasturing 
with sheep cross-plowing or back-setting may be feasible in 
the fall or spring thus getting the soil worked up sooner. 
Swamp Land.—A large amount of land in the northern 
counties is swampy. These swamps fall into two classes— 
those which grow timber and those on which neither tim- 
ber or grass grows, except stunted spruce. 
