AGRICULTURE.

Colonist, Volume XIX, Issue 2281, 8 September 1877, Page 4

AGRICULTURE.

EXPERIMENTS IN TREE BLASTING. | ■ (Frpm t t]ie Canterbury Press.) A xumbbr of experiments in tree blasting were lately made near, Melbourne with .Nobel's patent, dynamite, The cartridges only explodel>y means of a detonating cap (inserted when the charge' is iabbut to be fired), or when heated to 420deg. Fahrenheit. The first experiment failed somewhat, through thej two charges placed under the trife not explodibg at the same time, the explosion nevertheless -being shown by the complete destruction of one side of the tree. A tree about 12ft in circumference was eeleotedt for, the second trial, about' 31b of dynamite (the''charge"cost-' ing 7s) being inserted in two holes bored under the trunk. The result of the'explosion was to.lift the whole mass of the tree right out of the ground, scattering the roots ;and branoheiim all direction*, and5 leaving a great,hole .in the earth.,< ■■ Thework of ' uprooting was very completely done,-.and ithe^ex ■ pen'ditiire saved by ,the application of a power of this kind may be caloulated from the fact, that the mass raised was estimated to weigh twenty .tons, and the cutting down and grubbing of thetroewas considered 'to be a good day's work for two .men. ): The third experiment was made with a still larger tree, under which i 6jrlb of dynamite was t inserted, and the thorough destruction. that, ; was v > wrought by this charge showed that a smaller quantity would have been sufficient for,.,the suoceis; of. the 'eiperiment. The dynamitei is,made up.in charges of 10 to lib., and by a little,experience!in its use .great preoision can be arrived at in ; effecting .the work, {desired to be done by a charge,,without any waste of powder. In the bush-covered .districts' of Now Zealand, and especially to diggers, such a destructive agent should be most valuable as a : meftns of saving labor. '