Identifier: improvingcropyie00newy (find matches)
Title: Improving crop yields by the use of dynamite
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: New York central and Hudson River railroad company. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Explosives
Publisher: (Baltimore, The Lord Baltimore press
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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the groundwas not blasted, the corn had to be planted 18 inches apart in therow, with rows 4 feet apart. The blasted ground was able to nour-ish stalks six inches apart, with the rows spaced as before. The cornon the blasted ground grew almost one-half taller than that on theunblasted ground and produced a crop 33 per cent, greater. Thiscorn was weighed by a committee of the Chamber of Commerce,of Spartanburg, S. C, and report made to Col. E. J. Watson.United States Commissioner of Agriculture, of Columbia, S. C.The committee also stated that the blasted ground produced fullerears and firmer grains. It is impossible, in the limited space of this handbook, to givedetails concerning the results of the subsoil blasting done by manyof those who have profited greatly by it, but J. T. Garrett, ofLaurens, N. C, who greatly improved his corn and watermelonyield, and M. T. Williams, of Medicine Lodge, Kan., who in-creased the value of his land almost tenfold for alfalfa, must be men-tioned. 69
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PREPARING THE LAND FOR CROPS The entire cost, including labor and explosives, of blasting anacre of ground with holes 3 feet deep and 15 feet apart, using ahalf-cartridge I J/4 x 8 inches in each hole amounts to about $ 18.The same charge in holes spaced 20 feet apart brings the cost peracre down to about $11. If charges of one cartridge be used inholes 20 feet apart, the entire cost will be about $ 15 per acre. In many parts of California and some of the other WesternStates true hardpan exists. The only way in which land underlaidby this hardpan can be made worth anything, is to break up thehardpan with explosives. Then fruit trees will grow and bear justas well as anywhere else. Tools Used When Blasting Subsoil In the South the holes in which the dynamite is exploded aremade by driving into the ground with sledges a steel bar, two anda half to three feet long, and a little larger in diameter than the dyna-mite cartridges. This bar has either a flange or a lug near the top,so that af

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