Ditching With Dynamite Endorsed by High Authority 



UPPER PENINSULA STATION 



Leo M. Geismar, Supt. 

 MICHIGAN EXPERIMENT STATION 



CHATHAM, MICH., March 11, 1912. 



I have used many tons of dynamite within the past twenty years, both in 

 removing stumps and for breaking up large boulders, and having never seen 

 dynamite used for digging ditches, I became interested in a demonstration 

 which your Company made in this neighborhood last summer. The test was 

 made on a side hill underlaid with a ledge of magnesian limestone about 

 five feet below the surface. Springs about half-way up the side hill kept 

 the lower half of the hill and about six acres of the level ground below in 

 an extremely wet condition. The soil is a sandy loam which contains a few 

 small boulders and many large, flat stones thrown into various positions and 

 weighing from 20 to sometimes over 150 pounds each. Hand digging in such 

 ground is necessarily slow, for ditches have to be dug wide at the bottom to 

 keep from caving in, and many large stones must be either broken up or 

 removed with crowbars. There are several of these side hills in this neighbor- 

 hood, and two men rarely average more than a rod and a half a day in digging 

 ditches on such ground. 



To cut the water off, a ditch four rods long was blasted out with dyna- 

 mite, the amount used being evidently more than would have been necessary, 

 for it not only opened a ditch of ample width, but shattered nearly a foot 

 of the solid ledge of rock in the bottom. The cost was as follows : 



Dynamite and caps with fuse $3.00 



1 man, 1 hour with dynamite 25 



1 man, 2 hours cleaning out bottom of ditch 35 



Total $3.60 or 90c. a rod 



With two men digging one and a half rods a day and getting each $1.75 

 a day, the cost per rod would have been $2.33 or over two and a half times more 

 than the cost of digging with dynamite. This demonstration convinces me that 

 on ordinary ground, especially heavy clay, the cost of digging with dynamite 

 must be less than one-half the cost of hand digging. Furthermore, the work 

 of digging with dynamite is done so rapidly that the advantage thereof can- 

 not well be overlooked. 



Very respectfully yours, LEO M. GEISMAR, Supt. 



Underdrainage Increases Land Value $100.00 per Acre 



FAYETTEVILLE, N. Y., Nov. 4, 1911. 



You may be interested in learning that I had about six acres of worthless 

 land, which was mostly bog and trash, that has been successfully drained with 

 Red Cross Dynamite. 



This land was always covered with water, due undoubtedly to a stratum of 

 shale limestone underneath, but by drilling down through this limestone from 

 8 to 12 feet deep at the lowest spots in the swamp, "I not only succeeded in 

 draining the entire six acres, but since then it has been planted to corn and 

 potatoes and now to alfalfa, which is yielding as high as five tons per acre. 



The cost of this draining work was about $100.00 including cleaning up the 

 brush, etc., which I consider most economical. In fact, I could not have 

 drained this bog economically excepting by the use of dynamite. 



I might also add that the value of this land has been increased from 

 practically nothing to $100.00 per acre. 



Yours very truly, 



F. E. DAWLEY. 



42 



