"Farming with Dynamite"

[ohland]

Printed by DuPont in 1910. As Edgar Montrose would say, there is nothing that can't be solved with the application of high explosives... YMMV...

http://www.agsolutionsllc.com/farming-with-dynamite.pdf

[pworley1]

When I was young you could buy dynamite, fuse, and blasting cap at the hardware store just like nails or barbed wire. We used to use several cases of it when ever we would clear a field after cutting the timber from it. The left over dynamite was great for fishing.

[williamwaco]

That was fun!

Thanks

[FISH4BUGS]

That just fits us guys....blowing things up....yessir....no wonder we love tannerite!

[Plate plinker]

Only wish tannerite had a higher yield.

[cbrick]

Gotta love the price, it'll sure never be 1910 again.

Rick

[leeggen]

Can't you just imadgen how many dif types of police would show up if you started dynamiting trees on a farm????? You think Boston was coverd with police from everywhere at the marathon.
CD

[BruceB]

I just ran an inflation calculator.....

$18.00 in 1913 had the buying power of $433 in 2014.

Sorta takes some of the fun way, doesn't it?

[Garyshome]

Used for fishing?

[Lee]

Yep. Fishing. Full-auto AK also works well. Don't ask me how I know

[Mike in TX]

Yup, the 50's were fun growing up days. 3 colors of dynamite and different fuses at the feed store. One could buy a case or an eighth of a stick. Sold 22 by the piece to us poor farm boys. When I was about 12 I was allowed to set off the dynamite.

[BruceB]

Fishing.....

On the way back to camp after a day of "fishing" up the Yellowknife River (flows into Great Slave Lake), we still had a dozen or so sticks of powder left. Not wanting to take them into camp with a bunch of people, I made up a single charge with all the remaining sticks.

Lighting the approximately three-minute fuse, about five feet long, I tossed the bomb into what I THOUGHT was a weed-bed with maybe six feet of water.

Not quite!

The smoking bundle remained on the surface, in maybe six INCHES of water.

Naturally, then the kicker wouldn't start, and all hands started paddling frantically to get away from the vicinity.

Fortunately, the outboard finally started and we made it a hundred yards or so before the eruption. It was quite dim evening light by then and I'm still surprised that the flash wasn't seen in Yellowknife, several miles across the bay. (Maybe it WAS seen, but I heard nothing about it.) The concussion surely seemed to echo for a loooong time.

Yep, "fishing".

[WILCO]

From a simpler time in America.

[Ed Barrett]

I remember my uncle Dan betting that he could blow a stump and it would land on an X he would scratch on the ground. He would win 9 out 10 times.

[kfarm]

I too remember my dad sending me to town to buy dynamite while I was still in high school, bet I even had some in my Karmin Giha at school. My how people and things have changed so much.

[Gator 45/70]

Police down here would line up waiting for there turn.

Can't you just imadgen how many dif types of police would show up if you started dynamiting trees on a farm????? You think Boston was coverd with police from everywhere at the marathon.
CD

[Owen49]

After I came home from the Army, I'd go to the county sheriff's office & give them $5.00 for a 30 day Dangerous Ordnance Permit & take the permit to the hardware store & purchase all of the dynamite, caps & fuse I wanted during that 30 day time period. I'd blow stumps from my grandfather's fields for him. It was an economical alternative to lots of sweat, blisters & aching backs. Those days are gone. I don't even know where I could purchase dynamite anymore.

[ohland]

My dad blew a stump back in the mid-60s, one stick didn't budge it (tamping?) so he used a few more. Launched it about 100 yards or so. Said it looked like the ground peeled back and there was all sorts of dirt coming down, clods, dust, and whatnot...

[musty nugget]

I remember going to the hardware store with my grandfather to pick up a case of dynamite and fuse for his bootleger (coal) mine in the 60's.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I recall as a youngster in the very early mid century of my Dad buying some dynamite and everything else needed to detonate it from a local family run hardware store. There were large granite stones in one of our fields that Dad finally got fed up with breaking plow points or plowing around. My Dad, older brother and I dug down on all sides of the bigger rocks (kitchen table sized) to find a good spot to place a charge. Well Dad figured more was better than a little for moving the bigger rocks. Instead of 1/3 or 1/2 of a stick he placed 2 full sticks in a hole by a huge rock. We were 1/3 of a mile away in a cornfield when the blast went. Windows for a mile around our farm were rattled, cracked or blown in on our farm 1/2 mile from the blast. The rock was totally shattered and blown out across a large area from the huge hole we now had to fill in. Nobody ever showed up to see what happened or ask what was exploding here, other farmers were doing similar things from time to time every Summer as I recall till into the `60`s.Robert