Successful Ditching on Farm of Editor of 

 American Agriculturist 



XEWBURGH, N. Y., JULY 18, 1911. 



"The dynamite demonstration on my farm last week was an emphatic suc- 

 cess. The ditching was a complete surprise to everybody. The dynamite 

 certainly did the work and made as pretty a ditch as ever I saw. (See u ts 

 on page 32.) 



"The subsoiling work I am confident is full of promise. I shall follow all 

 these matters very carefully from year to year and record just what results 

 have been obtained. 



"C. N. BURKETT." 



A Professional Blaster's Report of Some 

 Drainage Blasts 



HUTCHINSON, KAN., JANUARY 16, 1912. 



E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS POWDER Co. 

 WILMINGTON, DEL. 



Gentlemen: 



Received your letter, have read it over carefully and would say that the 

 Severance Farm, where I dynamited has raised in value fifty dollars per acre and 

 also that the Wells Place three miles south of Hutchinson where I dynamited to 

 drain ground, was just in small patches, but he got enough wheat off the blasted 

 ground to pay for shooting his whole eighty acres. 



As for Mr. Spankenberg T he had a big basin in the middle of his field. 

 I went out there last Februa y and shot fifty pounds of Du Pont 40% Red 

 Cross on this five acres and in one week from the day I shot this we had six 

 inches of rainfall (in one week) and Mr. Spankenberger rode out to his field 

 expecting to find a pond as usual, but to his surprise his ground was dry, 

 no water standing in this basin. This was a poor corn year in this country, 

 but Mr. Spankenherger raised corn enough on this basin to more than pay for 

 shooting this land. 



Mr. Jake Siegrist. four miles southwest of Hutchinson, had a piece of 

 land similar to Mr. Spankenberger's and T shot fifty pounds of dynamite 

 on it and he raised a corn crop on it this year. Also Mr. George Siegrist at 

 Whiteside. Kan., had a piece of land on his place of five acres that was worth- 

 less. I shot thirty pounds of dvnamite on this ground one year ago and today 

 this ground is worth seventy dollars per acre. 



I went up into Pawnee County two years ago and shot a piece of ground 

 that was under water two feet deep at the time, consisting of thirty acres. I 

 drained the water all off that ground with twenty-five pounds of dynamite and 

 Mr. Ford plowed this up and sowed it to alfalfa and he has got as nice a 

 field of alfalfa now as there is in Pawnee County. 



I also dynamited thirtv tree holes for Mr. Friends in Rozel. Kans., and he 

 did not lose a tree. I also dynamited thirty tree holes for Mr. Smith and 

 every tree he planted lived but one. I dynamited thirty-one tree holes for 

 Mr. Yaggar of Rozel. Kans., and his trees all lived, and trees don't grow in 

 this country in an ordinary tree hole. 



All of those places I have told you about I have kept personal track of and 

 I know what they were and what they are now, besides dozens of others. 



Yours truly, 



A. G. CRABB, 

 "720 E. 7th Street, 



Hutchinson, Kans. 

 33 



