930 



Canadian Forestry JournaL January, 1917 



of wood depends on many different 

 factors. It has a relation not only 

 to the amount of resin it contains 

 but to the amount of moisture pres- 

 ent. Furthermore, cords vary as to 

 the amount of sohd wood they con- 

 tain, even when they are of the stan- 

 dard dimension and occupy 128 cubic 



feet of space. A certain proportion 

 of this space is made up of air spaces 

 between the sticks, and this air space 

 may be considerable in a cord made 

 of twisted, crooked, and knotty sticks. 

 Out of the 128 cubic feet, a fair aver- 

 age of solid wood is about 80 cubic 

 feet. — American Forestry. 



I Cost of Clearing Land Bp Two Methods 



4k_., 



Experimental Farm Bulletin 



When time is no object, the best 

 way to clear land from timber growth 

 is to let nature and live stock assist. 

 When the growth is removed and the 

 brush burned off clean, which, with 

 most growths, may be made a pro- 

 fitable operation by the sale of the 

 timber and fire-wood, clover and grass 

 seed may be sown, and, while cattle 

 and sheep are pasturing and eating 

 down the sprouts, the stumps will 

 slowly but surely decay, and their 

 removal becomes an easy operation. 

 This process will require from six to 

 ten years before clearing can be 

 completed. 



At the Experimental Station, 

 Fredericton, N.B., where it was de- 

 sired to bring the land into cultiva- 

 tion at the earliest possible moment, 

 two plans of stump removal have been 

 tried, and herewith are given figures 

 of the relative cost on land from 

 which an average tree growth had 

 been removed. The two methods 

 employed were, stump pulling by 

 power, and removal by dynamite. 



A stump puller of the drum and 

 long lever type was employed, giving 

 a lifting power of 25 tons with an 

 ordinary team. With one hundred 

 and twenty stumps, 10 inches and over 

 to the acre, and seventy-two smaller 

 stumps, it required an average of 

 twenty minutes with a team and 

 driver and two men to remove each 

 of the large stumps and 5 minutes to 

 remove each of the smaller ones. The 

 120 stumps required 40 hours, and the 

 smaller ones 6 hours. 



The relative cost, therefore, stood 

 as follows: — Where Power machinery 

 was used, cost per acre was: 



46 hours work team and 



driver at32c $ 14.72 



92 hours work helpers at 



18c 16.56 



330 hours work cleaning and 



piling at 18c 59.40 



60 hours work burning at 



18c 10.80 



1101.48 



Where explosives were used, the 

 cost per acre was: 



150 lbs. Stumping powder 



at$14.90 1 22.35 



500 feet Fuse at 60c 3.00 



300 Caps at $1.00 3.00 



40 hrs. labor of Dynamite 



operator at 23c 9.20 



40 hrs. team and driver at 



32c 12.80 



80 hrs. helpers at 18c 14.40 



60 hrs. labor piling at 18c .. 10.80 



40 hrs. labor burning at 18c 7.20 



.75 



On other areas, where there were 

 heavy boulders and small stones, the 

 cost of clearing ran up to $186.00 per 

 acre, while, where the land was free 

 from stone, and stumps were small 

 and comparatively few, the land was 

 made ready for the plough at a cost 

 of less than $40.00 per acre. 



