Blasting and Burning Tree Roots 275 



stumps. If there is no man on the estate qualified to 

 handle explosives, an expert must be employed at about 1 

 per day, besides travelling and hotel expenses. Three men 

 an expert and two labourers can bore holes and blast 

 thirty sound stumps per day easily. If the stumps are 

 hollow in the centre, two or three bore-holes are necessary 

 for each stump, and in that case twenty only can be blasted 

 during the day. Taking the pre-war wages of two labourers 

 at 2s. Qd. each per day. the cost of boring and firing aver- 

 ages 2\d. per stump, exclusive of the expert's fee. The 

 expert's fee increases the cost by about 2s. per stump. 



The explosive used is Nobel's dynamite, in the form of 

 cartridges, costing 9|d. per Ib. The average quantity used 

 for each stump is between 2 Ibs. and 3 Ibs. (about twenty 

 to thirty cartridges), so that the cost of the explosive is not 

 more than 2s. 6d. per stump. The detonators and fuses 

 required only cost a few pence. Summing up, the cost per 

 stump is : 



s. d. 

 Expert's fee 20 



Cost of boring . . . . . . . 2| 



Cost of explosive . . . . . .26 



Detonators and fuse . . . . . . 9| 



5 6 



Misfires and partial removal of stump may require fresh 

 borings and further charges of explosive, thus increasing 

 the cost. By employing a skilled estate hand capable of 

 using explosives instead of an expert, the expense, however, 

 is greatly diminished. 



By the old method of grubbing and jacking, stumps were 

 removed at Studley some time ago at the high cost of about 

 2 53. each butt, and even then success was only partial. 

 In another case, on an estate in Norfolk, where an old pasture 

 was converted into a plantation of mixed trees, trenching 

 at the cost of 18 per acre had to be resorted to on account of 

 the presence of roots and stumps of old trees. In this case 

 it would have been much cheaper to have removed the 

 stumps by blasting. The demonstrations at Studley 



