(YKAIMN<; Ursii LANDS IN I'KITISII 



is not, as a rule, a very big undertaking, as very often they turn down into the 

 ground and can be cut off a foot or two below the surface. 



All this sounds more complicated than it really is. Two men can generally get 

 rid of an old-growth fir stump by this means in one or, at most, two days, with a 

 very small expenditure of powder. If the settler has a team a good deal of the 

 digging and chopping can be done away with, and these roots pulled out with a 

 team can be pulled around in such a way that they will pry out without too much 

 muscular exertion. 



II 



The use of a team in stumping almost invariably necessitates the use also of 

 blocks and tackle. It would be impossible in the limits imposed by this pamphlet 

 to give any useful description of this class of work. The use of blocks and wire 

 cable or tackle, as it is commonly called in connection with stumping operations 

 in the hands of a really skilled man is a very good way indeed of getting stumps out 

 quickly, cheaply, and with much less hard work than if the stumping is done by 

 any of the methods mentioned before ; but unless the settler really is skilled in this 

 particular work he had better leave it alone and hitch his team on to nothing which 

 they cannot pull out with a straight pull. To a man who really is skilled in the use 

 of blocks any description in this pamphlet would be quite superfluous. 



Taking out old-growth cedar stumps, particularly the very large hollow ones, is 

 a somewhat different business. It is impossible to take them out with one large 

 blast when they are hollow. The only way to do is to put a stick or even half 

 a stick, of powder in some suitable place and blast an opening in the outer shell or 

 crack some of it up. These roots, as a rule, will not go very deep, and when the 

 outer shell is once cracked up they can either be pulled out with a team or dug out 

 by hand. 



SECOND-GROWTH STUMPS. 



The above has been written more particularly with reference to old-growth 

 stumps. As regards the second-growth stumps, the largest of which will rarely 

 exceed 2 feet G inches in diameter, with very few attaining that size, these must 

 also be got rid of before the land can be ploughed to advantage. The smaller ones 

 can be got out most cheaply by uncovering one or two of the main roots, chopping 

 them off below the surface of the ground, and then pulling them out with a team ; 

 but when they are over 18 inches or 2 feet in diameter the best way is to put an 

 auger-hole 3 or 4 feet deep right under the centre of the stump and use sufficient 

 powder to lift up the whole stump. The hole should be made deep enough, the 

 deeper the better. When these stumps are once out they are not too large for a 

 team to handle conveniently. Approximately about 1 Ib. of powder to each foot 

 in diameter of the stump is usually enough in clay ground, but in sandy or gravelly 

 ground about 50 per cent, more is required, and this only applies to stumps which 

 have been cut for some time. A newly cut stump would probably want double the 

 amount of powder. This does not apply, either, to old-growth stumps, which if they 

 are going to be blasted out completely in one operation require considerably more 

 than that. The amount required for them will vary from half a box to a box of 



