NO NEED TO LET STUMPS ROT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 105, 27 January 1908, Page 2

NO NEED TO LET STUMPS ROT.

I had an opportunity at Tane (writes our travelling correspondent) of going ovor a paddock which has been ... stumped. : Mr., .Sinsted showed mo the result of using blasting gelatine. Tho explosive force of .this is enormous. ,Tho bigger tho stump and the firtacr it is in tho ground, the better is the job which ensues. It not onty throws the stumps out of the ground, but it also splits them up into firewood, or into chunks which are oasily shifted and burned.. Tho immense saving in time and money—bccauso even in farming timo is money—-is very great. I have seen stumps thrown out and split up in seven minutes from starting, which would have taken two men a full day with spado and jack. With these explosives, land whero tho bush has only been down a comparatively short time can bo ploughed years bofore it oould be done in the old-fashioned manner of waiting till the roots havo rotteu. Be-, sides, it is much less expensive.' Heavy bush land which has been down, say, ten years, cannot bo stumped by hand for loss than fifteen or twenty pounds an acre, which, of course, is quito out of tho quostion. All this is now alterod, for the explosives will shift anything. I havo seen rimu stumps, six feot across at the . scarfo, blown clean out for half-a-crown.