"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]

:twisted: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:twisted:

[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

[Superfly]

My uncle had his cat dozer parked on a hole and there was a rock that they could not get drilled through for a water well. The well driller said he would just blow the rock to crack it. OPPS Uncle parked the dozer on the hole and the driller screwed up and to many boom stick were used. After the dirt and the dozer quit falling from the sky they had launched the dozer into the air flipping it on to it's Gage and crushing it. Uncle was Pissed that day.

[MaryB]

I remember grandpa dynamiting some stumps, one in particular had survived 2 attempts so he bored a hole in it and put in 2 sticks then poured glue in the hole and let it set overnight. Splinters came down in the neighbors yard across the road and it took out the windows in the farmhouse. Grandma was NOT pleased with him... he spent 3 nights in his workshop where he had his pipe and several bottles of moonshine. Grandma said no more dynamite get rid of it so we went fishing in the Minnesota River with it.

[TXGunNut]

Last I heard dynamite isn't that hard to get, just need to know where to go. Been several years since I knew anyone who used it so times may have changed.

[Iowa Fox]

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.

I tagged along many times with my Dad and Grandpa to buy dynamite for the farm. Mostly we used it for stumps, just enough to lift them out of the ground. In the field we had rocks the size of cars. We hauled out water in cream cans and mud packed them. I miss Dad, Grandpa, and the United States of America.

[Blacksmith]

That book is interesting, it tells you what you can do with dynamite. This book tells you how to do it, Dupont Blasters Handbook:
http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/terrorism_and_pyrotechnics/explosives/Demolition_Blasting_Sabotage/Dupont%20Blasters%20Handbook%201922%20ed.pdf

[Duckiller]

1/2 stick of dynamite was a lot cheaper than renting a D6 to remove cherry tree stumps. Blast put nitrogen into the soil for replanting.

[reloader28]

One of the Duponts owns a ranch near me. Well, she died a few years ago and now her daughter owns it. We've done lottsa work for them.

Anyway, I could easily see old lady Dupont doing that. She was a fireball. Flat tell you what was on her mind. Kept a loaded pistol by the door just to shoot certain birds from the bird feeder. She was a good shot, too. Run around in holey jeans and an old beat up Bronco, then jump on the private jet and go to a company meeting every month.

Kinda miss that crazy old lady. She loved my kids and gave me my first stock car sponsership.:smile:

[Blacksmith]

Lots of DuPonts around here I know a number of them. Good people for the most part and you would not know they had money from looking at them. They are also very philanthropic but usually done quietly with no publicity.

[DLCTEX]

To transport just a few sticks of dynamite now requires hazmat driver's license, marked vehicle, and enough rules and liceneses, paperwork, investigation into your background, etc. etc. to make you decide to just leave the stump, rock, or whatever. In 1971 I was running a dozer for a rock crusher and while making a long push there was a sudden concussion and the ground 20 yds. from me fluffed up three feet higher. I chewed on the powder monkey for not giving me warning and he just shrugged it off, saying he knew it wasn't going to be a wild shot.

[shaune509]

I have both Dupont books from dad's collection '50s print dates. Dad used to blow stumps and rocks up till about '74 when the regs here started to change along with less need for blasting.
Shaune509

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

My grandpa talks about how my great grandpa was sort of an artist with the dynamite , he blew a lot of stumps

[M-Tecs]

Used dynamite to blast springs so they flowed better. Got to go fishing with it once.

[Frank46]

My cousin used to work for a well drilling company. Told me one time that they drilled into some rock. Don't know if it was the booze but after they stuffed the hole with dynamite and a couple barrels of sand they retired to what they thought was a safe distance. Well they touched the dynamite off. rained rocks and sand for a good long time. Frank