8000 Acres Reclaimed by Ditching 



HERNANDO, Miss., Jan. 15, 1912. 



Your letter received this A. M. in regard to the use of explosives. I 

 have had a very remarkable success in this line, especially in blasting stumps, 

 ditches and hardpan. 



There was a large drainage district in this county, called Hurricane Swamp 

 Land District, comprising about eight thousand (8,000) acres of land not 

 susceptible to cultivation. Bonds were issued to the amount of $10,000 for a 

 ditch 8 feet wide and from 2y 2 to 10 feet deep. My father was interested 

 in several thousand acres of land in this district, so he bought the bonds and 

 carried out the contract of excavating the canal. 



I was put in charge of the above work and completed the canal, using over 

 two thousand ($2,000) dollars worth of Red Cross Dynamite bought from Levi 

 Joy & Company, of Memphis, Tenn. I started this work, removing the stumps 

 with a stump puller, but found I had struck a hard proposition. My first 

 order for one thousand (1,000) pounds of 40% dynamite made the stumps 

 come so easy that I thought blasting the ditch was possible, so I began and 

 in a few days could remove more dirt for $1.50 invested in dynamite than 

 $3.00 of shovel work. I made average of handling dirt at ll^c. per cubic 

 yard where it would have cost me 20c. to shovel same. Where the cut was more 

 than 6 ft. negroes would not attempt to use the shovel but wanted barrows. 

 So here is where Mr. Negro lost out, as the dynamite blew it out most suc- 

 cessfully. 



The above canal was in made land from 4 to 10 feet deep and required 

 considerable boring to get under some of the largest stumps, but after the 

 explosion I had no bother with pulling the remains off right of way. In 

 using the stump puller it was more trouble to remove the stumps after being 

 pulled as the dirt remaining on some of the stumps would weigh tons and 

 had to be loosened and knocked off with the use of two (2) sticks of dyna- 

 mite. When using dynamite a man could roll it off with little trouble right 

 away, and without the dynamite he could have hardly pulled it off with eight 

 yoke of cattle. 



This land that was worthless is now the finest land in the county. I have used 

 the 40% dynamite in all of my work and we attribute the fast coming and washing 

 due to the use of your explosives. I hope to dynamite about 15 acres of my own 

 farm between now r and the 15th of March. The above work will be subsoiling as 

 we have a very heavy clay subsoil in this district. I thoroughly understand setting 

 trees with dynamite and all its branches. Yours very truly, 



N. C. BANKS, 

 Box 14, Hernando, Miss. 



Straightens Creek With Dynamite 



YALMAR, MICH., Scot. 21, 1911. 



The ditching proposition hit me the most and would never believe until I 

 saw your men do it here, as the creek was making all kinds of turns and 

 swings and cutting my farm up in an awful shape, and I could have had it 

 done long before this if I had only known how, and with a great deal less 

 labor and at half cost than to do it with a team and scraper. Even then it 

 would have been very hard to get it done on account of all the roots and big 

 stones there are in places which were easily shot out with dynamite. 



The ditch they shot here to my measure was 80 feet long and 7 feet 

 wide and 3 l / 2 at bottom, 3 l / 2 feet to 4 deep with the cost of $2.25, which would 

 cost me close to $125 per rod if I was to have it done with team and scraper 

 or with a shovel. 



CHAS. WILSON. 

 37 



