S6 Peach-Growing 



These claims in part may or may not be realized. Much 

 depends on the character of the soil and subsoil and their 

 condition. The condition of the subsoil at the time the 

 blasting is done is of particular importance. The great 

 danger of this method is that the claims made for it will 

 be accepted without the necessary qualifications that should 

 accompany them, and d^Tiamite used without due discrim- 

 ination and in anticipation of its being effective in making 

 any sort of an impossible soil condition fully suitable for 

 peaches or other fruits. It may be questioned consistently 

 whether a soil that is inherently unsuited for peaches can be 

 adequately and permanently improved by its use, or whether 

 one that is well suited for peaches will be materially benefited 

 by it. Yet in some cases there has been some benefit in the 

 growth of the trees during the first year or two which is un- 

 mistakably traceable to the effect of the dynamite used in 

 preparing the holes. It is true also that the fitness or unfit- 

 ness of soils for the growing of peaches is relative. All de- 

 grees towards either extreme may exist, at least in the abstract. 



Perhaps the one condition that is unmistakably amenable 

 to a beneficial effect of blasting with dynamite is where there 

 is a stratum of hardpan a few inches below the surface and 

 below which the subsoil is satisfactory and the conditions 

 otherwise favorable. The hardpan stratum can usually be 

 broken up with dynamite and the conditions thus materially 

 and perhaps permanently improved. On the other hand, 

 positive injury may and usually does follow if the subsoil is 

 too moist when the explosive is used and especially when it 

 contains considerable clay. Instead of shattering and pul- 

 verizing the soil the explosion creates a chamber, thereby 

 greatly compacting the soil within the radius of its effect, 

 thus making conditions worse than in the beginning. 



