Two views of the same piece of land showing the change in one season. Clearing land is good work for the fall and winter so as to be ready for spring planting 



Turning Idle Acres into Profit garrett 



M. STACK 



Clearing Neglected Land of Boulders, Stumps, and Brush for Food Crops— Methods and Expense Entailed 



CLEARING land in order to make it 

 available for food crop production is no 

 little problem under present conditions. 

 With the desire to increase the acreage 

 under profitable production and at the same time 

 to do this as economically as possible when con- 

 fronted with the difficulty of procuring adequate 

 labor, attention may well be given to modern 

 mechanical means. We are looking to our cut 

 over timberlands grown up to brush and worth- 

 less trees, and to our wornout tillable areas as our 

 " munition " fields. Some of these are well worth 

 the attention and indeed the small areas around 

 cities and in suburban developments have already 

 been drawn into service. Thousands of people 

 have lately acquired some knowledge of how to 

 go about the business of turning land into food 

 factories. One question is: can the plan be 

 pushed farther? The bigger question is: can we 

 afford not to push it farther, and to leave out of 

 our future plans the reclamation of such areas as 

 we have referred to above. Many of these neg- 

 lected fields have an accumulation of leaf mold 

 and humus that has added fertility to the soil and 

 their latent productive power is greater than that 

 of many other acres that have been under im- 

 provident tillage and in which the plant food has 

 been burnt up. 



Of course any gardener can improve his land 

 on the "instalment plan" by removing boulders, 

 stumps, and brush when he has no other pressing 

 work on hand, and eventually clear an acre of 

 "new land" in a year without seriously feeling 

 the expense; but the person attempting a "clean 

 sweep" of ten acres or more of very stony land 

 soon realizes that it is not an ordinary problem. 



As an example of clearing land on an extensive 

 scale, I cite from my own experience with ten 

 acres of stony brushland. 



The location was very promising — deep soil 

 with hardpan not near the surface, and sit- 

 uated close to the railroad depot. The land was 

 rolling but not too steep for the use of mod- 

 ern farm machinery. Owing to the favorable 

 location, the time saved in marketing from it 

 prompted the clearing of boulders, brush, and 

 stumps so that the fields could be placed under 

 more intensive cultivation. Stone walls en- 

 closed the fields in irregular shapes; cross walls 

 divided them into small fields and utilized 

 a rod of space that could not be planted to 

 crops. Our first move was to tear down a 

 cross wall, giving a contractor all the stone, 

 provided he would make a "clean sweep." The 

 following March we began to clean the land for 

 crops. The obstacles in our way were as follows: 

 boulders and stones which could be removed 

 without blasting; brush, and stumps and bould- 

 ers too large to handle without blasting. Our 

 campaign against them was then taken in the 

 following order: 



Remove all loose stone and small boulders 



from an acre and then proceed to another. Pull 

 all brush during the same period. Proceed to 

 another with the small stone and brush removal 

 work, and at the same time commence blasting 

 of stumps and boulders on the first plot. Return 

 to the blasted acre and remove the fragments of 

 rock and stumps, burn stumps and brush, and fill 

 in holes with a two horse scraper. 



The work of removing small stones and bould- 

 ers required the services of three men and a team. 

 One man was detailed in digging around stones 

 which seemed small enough for horses to pull out; 

 the second man was equipped with crowbar and 

 a huge wooden lever, and brought to the surface 

 small boulders no larger than a barrel, helping the 

 man with team to load them on a stone boat. 

 The product was carted to the fences. At the 

 outset we found that the logical procedure was 

 to start at the sides and work halfway into the 

 field; and in tackling the next acre to proceed to 

 a place as far away from the blasting work as 

 possible. We attempted to bury all the small 

 stones, but it proved to be too expensive. The 

 brush was easily pulled by the assistance of a 

 team and a man with an axe. Brush is removed, 

 roots and all, much better when the tops are left 

 than if they are cut off near the ground. 



Turning to dynamite for rock and stump 

 work, we seldom drill a hole in a boulder that we 

 can find the bottom of; we smash it to pieces 

 so small that very often the same stone can be 

 placed back in the hole and covered with enough 

 earth so that the plow will never reach the pieces. 



Burying a boulder in the same hole from which 

 it comes, seems like putting a pint of peanuts into 

 a thimble, but nevertheless it can be accom- 

 plished. First, a hole is punched in the ground 

 under the stone with a round iron bar, and one, 

 two or three sticks of dynamite placed in, ac- 

 cording to the size of the stone; if it is of elephant 

 size, very often three or four holes are made, 

 and as much as ten pounds of dynamite placed 

 in them. They are discharged simultaneously 

 by electric detonators. This invariably re- 

 sults in lifting the boulder entirely out of the 

 hole and deepening the hole at the same time. 

 Of course it is necessary to dig out around the 

 stone until there is no earth to bind the sides at 

 the widest diameter. The passing out of the 

 hole of the boulder increases the size of the hole. 



Mudcapping is the quickest way of making 

 trap rock out of a boulder; it takes more dynamite 

 but saves a lot of stone hauling and drilling, 

 and my records show that time and expense 

 of labor are both saved. After the boulder 

 is out of its resting place, I select a flat spot 

 on top and take enough dynamite out of the 

 paper shells, press it gently with my hands 

 against the rock, put the paper shells on top of it, 

 place the cap and fuse (electric) in the dynamite, 

 and then make a" mud pie" in the earth; this must 

 be real mire and not of a sandy nature. I then 



place the mud on the dynamite to a depth of 

 one foot on all sides, and sprinkle with water to 

 keep out the air. Next, another charge is placed 

 on the side with the aim to push the broken 

 stone back in the hole. Placing the charge on the 

 side is difficult, unless there is a pocket or shelf 

 to hold the dynamite — if this is not present I 

 build up a pocket by placing some stones against 

 the boulder and then make a mudcap similar to 

 the one placed on top of the boulder. I connect 

 them together with electric wires, reel out a 

 few hundred feet of wire, and fire it with a blast- 

 ing battery; eight times out of ten the boulder 

 will be eliminated; if half of it can be placed in 

 the hole we have more than paid for the dyna- 

 mite. Mudcapping a boulder should not be at- 

 tempted near a house, unless the stone is covered 

 with a piece of wire netting, fence wire, and brush 

 to stop the flying stone. 



If the boulder is on top of the ground, or nearly 

 so, a hole can be made under it with a square 

 spade, and the sticks of dynamite placed in the 

 hole without taking them out of the shells; and a 

 mudcap placed on top of the stone. The double 

 force will smash it in the same manner as the 

 boulder that was placed back in the hole; a hole 

 will also be in the ground, because dynamite 

 works in all directions — not only downward but 

 upward as well. 



When a stone is very large and only a portion 

 shows above the ground, we do not dig it out 

 entirely; a couple of holes are made in the earth 

 on the sides with half-sticks of dynamite; a mud- 

 cap is placed on top and another on the side; the 

 result is the breaking ofF the top of the stone so 

 that earth can be placed on top of it, leaving it 

 beloWthe plow. 



Stumps are hard to remove, especially if they 

 are green and have fibrous roots. The tap- 

 rooted trees are easier, because a hole can be 

 bored in the largest root, and a small charge of 

 dynamite will break them into pieces easily 

 handled. 



What is the cost of clearing boulders per 

 acre? I have known of land that cost three 

 hundred dollars per acre to clear free from 

 stumps, boulders, and brush; other acres right 

 near it that did not cost more than fifty dollars 

 per acre. Our ten-acre field cost nearly one 

 hundred dollars per acre for labor, teams, and 

 material — the dynamite cost nearly thirty-eight 

 dollars using 40 per cent, low freezing dynamite. 

 Six weeks' time was used from the beginning of 

 work until the plowing was finished and the 

 ground ready for potatoes, corn, and onions. 



This is good work for late summer and early 

 fall to have the land ready for spring and besides 

 the explosive works better on the soil when it is 

 dry, the disturbance being in a way a partial plow- 

 ing. Fruit trees may be planted on dynamited 

 soil with the assurance of root room being avail- 

 able. 



