18 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 439 



In another instance two neighbors cooperated with the Soil Conservation 

 District to blast a ditch through a swamp. This ditch was almost completely 

 filled with silt and coarse swamp grass. A channel 8 feet wide at the top and 3 

 feet deep was blasted by setting sticks of dynamite 15 inches apart. Twelve 

 boxes of dynamite or 1200 sticks were set in this 1600-foot ditch by four men in 

 3J^ hours. The blasts were made in 300-foot sections and the men worked in 

 two crews setting dynamite from the ends of each section. Dynamite for this 

 ditch cost $105, charges of the blaster for time, caps, and wire were $9, and labor 

 at 50 cents per hour was $7. Total costs were about 8 cents per linear foot of 

 ditch. The work was accomplished in less than half a day. Surface water had 

 drained from 15 acres of swamp in two days and two acres of wet ha>'land were 

 drained enough to be harvested. 



Some of the advantages of blasting a ditch over digging with a power shovel 

 were that cost was usually lower, less time was needed to obtain drainage, soil 

 was scattered instead of piled along ditch, blasting was done in areas too wet to 

 use shovel, and farm labor w£ s used to set the dynamite instead of hiring extra 

 labor. 



Combinations of Improvement Activities 



One of the most common combinations of land improvement activities was 

 the removal of field boulders and stone walls on the same farm and at the same 

 time. This occurred especially in southeastern Massachusetts on dairy and 

 vegetable farms. In one such case 24 acres of land were cleared of boulders at a 

 cost of $126 per acre for machinery plus $7 for picking stones. At the same time 

 500 linear yards of stone wall were buried in a low area of the pasture at a cost 

 of $1 per yard. The stone wall removal increased the total cost per acre to $147 

 to obtain plowable pasture and cropland. 



On another farm 630 yards of stone wall were removed from hayland and 6 

 acres of pine stumps were cleared with a combination of bulldozer, power shovel, 

 and dump trucks. The walls were loaded on trucks and hauled away and the 

 trench was graded at a total cost for machinery of $1.46 per linear yard. The 

 stumps were pushed out by the bulldozer for $83 per acre. Loading with power 

 shovel and hauling with trucks increased the cost to $118 per acre. 



Without exception the woodland and brush clearing operations involved the 

 removal of old stumps, particularly oak and chestnut. On the stony types of 

 soil many boulders were removed at the same time, which partially accounted 

 for the variation in costs per acre for clearing woodland. Stump and boulder 

 removal were combined in a few instances and land was graded. In several cases 

 of clearing land for pasture improvement a drainage program was needed, and 

 conversely, much of the swamp land which was drained by blasting ditches was 

 improved to make pasture. 



Variations in Costs 



The cost has varied per acre of land improved, yard of stone wall removed, 

 foot of ditch blasted, and apple tree removed on these farms. Many of these 

 variations in cost per unit can be reduced by using the most efficient and least 

 costly method in future land improvement operations. 



One of the more common reasons for differences in costs was the size of bulldozer 

 used for the job, particularly in removing boulders and stone walls. Usually the 

 smaller machines at a lower rate per hour removed boulders at greater costs per 

 acre than larger bulldozers. An example of this variation in costs occurred in 

 two separate clearing operations on one farm. Boulders were cleared from 10 



