1064 
Wit  RURAL  NEW-YORKEP 
August  18,  1923 
just  as  they  come  from  the  factory.  A  great  many 
boulders  do  not  require  a  full-length  stick ;  some 
need  no  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  stick,  some  a  half 
and  some  two  full  sticks  or  more.  The  sticks  may 
be  cut  with  a  pocket  knife  into  any  size  needed.  A 
small  quantity  of  water  in  the  hole  is  of  no  conse¬ 
quence,  but  if  a  considerable  amount  is  there  it 
must  be  churned  out  with  a  sapling  split  into  sec¬ 
tions  at  the  end.  Then  cut  a  fuse,  put  one  end  into 
a  blasting  cap  and  very  carefully  crimp  the  open 
end  of  the  cap  snugly  about  the  fuse.  Press  the 
cap  its  length  into  the  opened  end  of  the  piece  of 
dynamite  which  is  to  be  the  top  piece  if  more  than 
one  piece  or  stick  is  used.  Slide  the  dynamite  easily 
into  the  hole  and  till  the  hole  for  two  or  more 
inches  with  moist  earth,  tamping  it  firm  with  a 
piece  of  sapling — never  with  steel  or  iron  tool !  The 
fuse  is  x-eady  to  light,  but  don’t  light  it — not  if  you 
have  eight  or  nine  other  holes  near  by  ready  for 
loading.  Load  the  other  holes  and  fire  the  entire 
number  at  one  lighting  by  one  person.  This  is  the 
method  we  found  very  good :  We  use  a  double-taped 
fuse,  which  is  timed  to  burn  one  foot  a  minute.  For 
hole  No.  1  is  cut  the  longest  fuse;  the  next  a  lit¬ 
tle  shorter  and  so  on  down  to  hole  No.  9,  which  is 
the  last  one  of  the  series  to  be  lighted.  From  a 
box  of  sawdust  or  planer  shavings  moistened  with 
kerosene  is  placed  a  small  handful  of  the  fuel  on 
each  boulder  loaded.  The  fuse-end  is  fixed  with  a 
small  stone  to  stay  securely  in  place  just  over  the 
kerosened  sawdust. 
The  torch  required  is  made  with  an  8  or  10-in. 
piece  of  asbestos  wicking  rolled  into  a  wad 
and  wired  to  a  two-foot  ix>d  of  iron,  or  a 
piece  of  gaspipe.  Pour  a  tablespoon  of  kero¬ 
sene  over  the  wicking;  go  to  fuse  No.  1.  and 
light  the  torch;  touch  the  planer  shavings  with  the 
flame,  and  move  exactly  along  the  circuit  of  fuses 
for  lighting  as  they  were  cut  in  diminishing  lengths 
to  the  end  of  the  series.  Keep  moving  to  the  place 
of  safety  previously  chosen.  This  method  of  light¬ 
ing  avoids  the  running  and  excitement  quite  in¬ 
evitable  when  two  or  more  men  are  lighting  fuses 
with  matches,  with  half  of  them  not  firing,  thus  in¬ 
troducing  much  uncertainty)  And  danger.  The  torcli- 
kei’osene  method  seldom  fails.  If  a  fuse  fails  to 
fire  its  charge — keep  count  of  the  blasts  as  they 
fire— don’t  go  near  it  for  at  least  10  minutes;  but 
such  a  thing  has  very  seldom  happened  with  us. 
Don’t  try  to  dig  the  unexploded  charge  out;  just 
place  another  charge  on  the  charged  hole,  put  a  25- 
lb.,  stone  on  the  new  charge  and  fire  it.  Its  concus¬ 
sion  will  set  off  the  misfired  load. 
Leather  gloves  should  be  worn  by  the  person  who 
handles  the  dynamite.  Bare  hands  will  absorb 
nitro-glycerine  to  stimulate  the  heai't  to  unwonted 
pulsations  that  will  yield  for  the  operator  cruel 
headaches.  The  headaches  from  dynamite  do  not 
come  from  breathing  the  smoke  from  the  blasts. 
Frequently  pieces  of  boulders  will  be  left  in  the 
hole,  too  large  to  be  rolled  out  by  hand.  Experi¬ 
ence  will  afford  much  play  of  invention  in  making 
proper  hitches  with  chains  enabling  a  team  of  horses 
to  work  to  full  advantage  of  their  power;  a  rolling 
hitch  will  get  the  stone  to  ground  level;  a  dragging 
hitch  may  stall  the  sti*ongest  team.  Ready  knowl¬ 
edge  in  making  the  Blackwell  hitch  at  the  big  hook 
attached  to  the  evener  will  speed  up  the  work 
greatly. 
Don’t  fail  to  dig  a  trench  all  the  way  around  a 
boulder,  if  it  lies  considerably  below  the  surface. 
This  should  be  done  by  an  advance  scout  before  any 
drilling  is  done;  otherwise  the  driller  cannot  judge 
well  where  to  drill  the  hole,  nor  how  deep  the  hole 
.should  be.  The  trench  needs  to  be  but  the  width 
of  the  shovel  blade.  This  trench  removes  a  great 
resistance  of  bondage  effected  by  the  soil  packed 
about  a  boulder.  Sometimes  a  boulder  is  almost 
keyed  in  the  ground  with  a  sort  of  retinue  of 
smaller  stones. 
The  Highway  Depax-tment  uses  dynamBe  as  low 
as  20  per  cent.  In  our  own  field  work  50  per  cent, 
when  obtainable,  has  been  used,  for  that  grade  blows 
the  Oculder  into  smaller  pieces.  But  don't  economize 
in  the  quantity  used,  for  any  grade  is  less  costly  than 
drillers’  time  and  wear  of  equipment  Blasting  out 
field  boulders,  for  ages  long  obstructive  sentinels 
to  progress,  leads  one  into  a  x’ealin  of  romantic  ad¬ 
ventures.  A  boulder  blasted  from  its  glacial  bed 
yields  to  its  victor  a  first-view  of  land  as  new  to 
him  as  the  first  sight  of  America  was  to  Columbus. 
Connecticut.  g.  warren  davis. 
Twenty-seven  years  ago  J.  IL  Hale  and  the  writer 
s, tailed  these  orchards,  150  aci-es  of  apples  and 
peaches  on  the  rockiest  land  I  have  even  seen. 
Fifty  acres  of  it  are  almost  as  well  covered  with 
rocks  as  a  well-set  table  is  with  dishes.  We  at 
once  began  blasting  and  digging  the  big  rocks  out, 
but  after  w.e  had  worn  ourselves  out  with  the  job 
we  gave  it  up  as  too  expensive,  and  turned  our  at¬ 
tention  in  the  direction  of  simple  tools  that  would 
work  in  spite  of  the  stones. 
Your  correspondent,  on  the  other  hand,  appar¬ 
ently  wishes  to  remove  only  a  few  boulders.  As 
far  as  we  know  there  is  no  inexpensive  power- 
driven  drill  which  would  be  within  the  i*each  of 
any  oi-dinary  farmer.  In  oi*der  to  save  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  hand  drilling  we  used  to  jam  a  crowbar 
under  a  boulder,  ram  in  a  generous  charge  of  dyna¬ 
mite,  insert  a  cap  and  fuse,  plug  up  the  hole  with 
dirt,  and  set  the  charge  off.  This  method,  how- 
ever,  was  found  to  require  more  dynamite  than  the 
old  way.  Probably  the  best  thing  for  an  amateur 
to  do  would  be  to  hire  a  professional  blaster,  al¬ 
though  they  are  hard  to  find  these  days. 
I  have  a  friend,  a  man  of  large  experience,  who 
answers  every  question  with  the  words  “That  de¬ 
pends.”  It  seems  to  me  that  these  words  might  ap¬ 
propriately  answer  the  question  as  to  the  advis¬ 
ability  of  blasting.  Conditions  vai*y. 
M.  L.  COLEMAN. 
That  Disease  of  “Live-forever” 
ON  page  894  we  planted  a  little  statement  about 
a  fungus  disease  which  infected  the  weed 
known  locally  as  “live-forever” — a  very  well  de¬ 
served  name.  Some  years  ago,  as  our  report  stated, 
a  fanner  in  Central  New  lTork  found  that  certain 
II a w  the  Fuse  Is  Fired.  Fiy  450 
plants  of  this  weed  were  afflicted  with  a  contagious 
disease  which  could  be  used  to  clean  up  fields 
where  this  weed  was  growing.  We  had  mislaid  his 
address,  and  printed  the  note  in  the  hope  of  learn¬ 
ing  something  more  about  the  matter.  We  generally 
find  things  through  Txie  R.  N.-Y.,  and  the  follow¬ 
ing  letter  seems  to  locate  the  original  “live-forever” 
man. 
About  25  years  ago  my  father  discovered  a  patch  of 
“live-forever”  on  a  farm  in  Cortland  County  which  ap¬ 
peared  to  be  dying  out,  a  thing  unheard  of  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  that  plant,  and  upon  investigation,  found  it 
appeared  to  be  caused  by  a  fungus  which  attacked  first 
the  leaf,  then  the  stalk  and  later  the  root.  He  de¬ 
cided  to  transfer  some  of  the  diseased  plants  to  places 
on  our  own  farm  which  were  infested  with  “live-for¬ 
ever”  in  a  thriving  condition.  In  about  three  years’ 
time  there  were  practically  no  traces  of  the  plant  on 
our  farm.  His  success  induced  him  to  go  into  the  mat¬ 
ter  in  a  commercial  way,  and  he  made  a  great  many 
contracts  to  kill  out  the  pest  on  various  farms  in 
Cortland,  Chenango,  Madison,  Fulton,  Oneida  and 
Herikimer  counties;  most  of  which  I  think  he  was  able 
to  fulfill. 
As  I  hav§  been  in  the  section  of  Cortland  County 
where  one  old  farm  is  located  but  little  of  late  years, 
I  cannot  say  whether  there  is  any  “live-forever”  to  be 
found  there,  but  as  most  of  the  fields  in  that  vicinity 
were  inoculated  with  the  diseased  plants  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  it  is  practically  extinct. 
HARVEY  E.  STONE. 
Should  Farmers  Limit  Production? 
Will  you  tell  me  just  what  law  or  laws  the  Legisla- 
ture,  State  or  national,  can  pass  to  remedy  the  pres¬ 
ent  existing  agricultural  condition?  It  seems  to  be 
the  general  opinion  among  farmers  that  political  con¬ 
ditions  are  responsible.  This  opinion  seems  to  be 
backed  up  by  the  agricultural  papers,  yours  among 
them.  It  is  my  very  much  unsought-for  opinion,  that 
there  is  but  one  law  that  could  have  any  effect  what¬ 
soever;  namely,  a  law  prohibiting  a  surplus  being 
thrown  on  the  market.  If  you  can  elect  legislators  who 
can  frame  up  a  law  to  beat  the  old  law  of  supply  and 
demand,  go  to  it. 
The  farmer  is  the  only  man  in  the  world  today  who 
does  not  know  that  the  war  is  over.  That  seems  strange 
when  news  travels  so  fast  on  these  rural  party  tele¬ 
phone  lines.  The  manufacturers  and  merchants  had 
to  face  the  same  conditions,  and  they  met  them  by  cut¬ 
ting  down,  and  in  some  cases,  stopping  production 
until  their  surplus  was  wiped  out  and  a  demand  created. 
The  crude  rubber  people  had  the  same  thing.  During 
the  war  rubber  sold  as  high  as  $3  per  lb.  When  the 
period  of  adjustment  set  in  after  the  war,  over-produc¬ 
tion  and  lack  of  demand  knocked  it  down  to  nine  cents 
per  pound.  The  planters  were  faced  with  ruin.  A 
commission  of  some  sort  was  appointed  by  the  British 
governr  ent  who  regulated  and  restricted  the  produc¬ 
tion,  and  they  only  allowed  so  many  shiploads  per 
month  to  be  sent  to  the  principal  markets.  Thus  they 
kept  the  supply  just  equal  and  sometimes  a  little  be¬ 
low  the  demand  and  gradually  brought  the  price  up. 
Our  government  could  not  very  well  appoint  a  com¬ 
mission,  with  the  power  to  regulate  the  production  of 
our  farm  products,  ‘but  to  use  a  phrase  I  have  seen 
often  in  your  paper  “We  could  do  it  ourselves.” 
I  am  a  dairyman  and  am  concerned  mostly  with  the 
price  of  milk.  Like  every  other  milk  producer  I  am 
not  satisfied  with  the  present  milk  prices,  and  I  know 
well  that  if  there  was  not  so  much  milk  produced  I 
would  get  a  satisfactory  price.  So  do  you,  and  so 
does  every  man  who  is  producing  it — no  one  cau  truth¬ 
fully  contradict  it.  Lack  of  supply  creates  demand, 
and  demand  creates  price,  so  we  will  take  that  for 
granted.  Next  thing  is,  what  are  we  doing  about  it? 
Nothing.  Then  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it? 
Nothing  again,  unless  some  one  starts  something.  So 
wny  don’t  you  start  the  ball  rolling?  Ask  your  read¬ 
ers  how  many  of  them  would  enter  an  agreement  to 
sell  to  a  butcher  10  per  cent  of  their  herd,  selecting 
the  boarder  cows  which  we  all  have;  feed  the  balance 
mostly  home-grown  grains  and  roughage  for  six  months, 
and  see  what  happens.  That  is  just  one  plan  ;  maybe 
some  one  has  a  better  one.  Why  don’t  you  ask  them 
and  find  out?  w.  D.  LYONS. 
New  York. 
WHEN  State  aiid  Federal  governments  were 
straining  every  effort  to  increase  produc¬ 
tion  on  the  farms,  and  it  was  a  sort  of  heresy  to  in- 
terrupt  it.  We  pointed  out  that  farmers  were  get¬ 
ting  only  35  cents  out  of  the  consumer's  dollar  and 
that  bumper  crops  brought  the  pi-oducer  less  than 
the  yield  in  seasons  of  small  production.  At  first 
the  35-cent  dollar  was  disputed  and  ridiculed  by 
high  authority ;  but  today  it  is  confirmed  and  re¬ 
peated  by  statesmen — the  highest  positions. 
The  ti'uth  of  the  matter,  however,  is  that  farmers 
do  not  get  the  full  benefit  of  short  ci’ops  Through 
political  agencies  the  middlemen  have  established 
a  marketing  system  that  gives  them  a  monopoly  of 
distribution,  and  the  power  to  lay  ti*ibute  on  every 
unit  of  food  that  passes  from  the  producer  to  the 
consumer.  The  only  law  that  we  would  ask  the 
Legislatui’e  to  enact  is  one  to  dissolve  this  partner¬ 
ship  between  government  and  middleman,  and  open 
the  channel  for  a  free  flow  of  food  products  from  the 
farm  to  the  city  consumer. 
It  is  legitimate  and  pi-udent  for  fannei's  to  limit 
production  to  the  normal  demand  as  manufacturers 
do,  but  to  limit  production  is  only  a  negative  policy. 
It  has  the  danger  of  reducing  consumption.  Our 
i  olicy  for  the  farm  is  to  increase  consumption,  and 
thereby  encourage  production  and  a  healthy  develop¬ 
ment  of  farm  industxdes.  The  pi’esent  educational  and 
allied  political  tendency  to  stimulate  farm  produc¬ 
tion  artificially  and  to  multiply  agencies  and  ex¬ 
pense  and  extravagances  in  distribution  working 
together  double  the  farm  bui’den.  In  addition  to 
this  governments  of  city,  State  and  nation  have 
helped  establish  an  artificial  rate  of  wage  for 
classes  of  employes  and  workmen,  and  have  decided 
on  the  building  up  of  a  system  of  exchange  by  which 
the  farmer  is  obliged  to  work  three  to  five  days  to 
px-oduce  an  article  that  he  must  exchange  for  one 
requiring  only  one  day  to  produce  in  the  city  shop. 
The  only  action  farmers  need  ask  of  Legislature  is 
to  i-epeal  the  laws  that  discriminate  against  them. 
To  move  legislation  to  this  action  is  a  work  for 
farmers  themselves. 
It  is  reported  that  considerable  meadow  land  which 
promised  a  light  crop  of  grass  has  been  plowed  and 
planted  to  corn,  to  be  used  in  the  silo. 
The  Ohio  Agricultural  College  reports  an  Ohio  farm¬ 
er  who  started  to  raise  a  ton  of  pork  from  one  sow  in 
six  months,  A  cross-bred  litter  of  nine  pigs  at  exactly 
six  months  weighed  2,035  lbs, 
