52 BULLETIN 1003, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
versity of Idaho (8), have done much actual work on land clearing 
in this section, and have found the cost of clearing for farm purposes 
to vary from $50 for the lightest clearing ground to $150 an acre for 
_heavily wooded hardwood land. 
In the sections from which samples were collected 20 aloe “pine 
stumps to the acre is a high average on land where the stand is 
mostly or entirely yellow awe under more commonly occurring con- 
ditions in which there is more of a mixed stand, such as in the Pot- 
latch-Deary district, 10 to 12 yellow-pine stumps to the acre is more 
nearly correct. | 
If, as indicated by these investigations, 10 per cent of the pehieee | 
pine stumps are of the rich, resinous type, yielding 20 gallons of 
turpentine and other produce in proportion a cord, or 15.4 gallons a 
ton, the 12 stumps an acre would yield 1 cord, and 20 ome about 
2 cords of wood an acre. 
If the wood could be disposed of for $10 a cord, the return for the 
extra labor, time, and expense required to split and sort out the 
resinous ocd al haul it to a shipping point would be from $10 to 
$20. Experiments in clearing 1 acre carrying 12 yellow-pine stumps, 
varying from 2 to 5 feet in diameter (page 18), have shown that 
this return will a little more than pay for the powder needed to 
blast out all the yellow-pine stumps. In other words, provided a 
market for the wood at $10 a cord is available, the net cost of land 
may be reduced from 64 to 40 per cent, less the cost of sorting and 
hauling to a shipping point. 
The chief question is whether a farmer can afford ¢ to shoot all the 
yellow pine clear of the ground, or crack with explosives and pull 
the pieces with a puller, then sort the wood and haul it to the rail- 
road, or whether he can get his land cleared more cheaply by using 
some of the methods of burning described in Idaho Agricultural Ex- 
-periment Station Bulletin 91, or United States Department of Agri- 
culture Farmers’ Bulletin 974. If the returns from the fat stumps 
on a tract are sufficient to justify the more expensive methods of 
clearing, and it is some advantage to have all‘the roots out of the 
ground, blasting is the method which will be most used. 
About 100 pounds of explosive would be required to shoot dear of 
the ground all the yellow-pine stumps on an acre, while 25 pounds 
would crack them enough so that they could be Barend In the first | 
case, the cost of explosive (1914-15) would be about $15 and in the ~ 
second case $4. The explosive could be placed with a little'less work 
if the stumps were to be burned. Possibly it would require about the 
same amount of labor to burn the stumps in the ground as it would 
to sort over the pieces, burn those unfit for distillation _purposes, and 
haul the rest to the railroad. On the assumption that it would, it 
