. Intensive farming and use of dynamite . ops on landalready under cultivation, and in transforming into excellent grow-ing land that which would have been worthless without dynamite. It is only lately, however, that the benefits from plowing withdynamite have become generally recognized. The Department ofAgriculture, the various agricultural colleges, and men prominentlyidentified with farming in different parts of the country, are all nowmaking a careful study of this question in order to determine thestrength, quantity and kind of explosives, the most effective way ofusing them, and the dep
. Intensive farming and use of dynamite . ops on landalready under cultivation, and in transforming into excellent grow-ing land that which would have been worthless without dynamite. It is only lately, however, that the benefits from plowing withdynamite have become generally recognized. The Department ofAgriculture, the various agricultural colleges, and men prominentlyidentified with farming in different parts of the country, are all nowmaking a careful study of this question in order to determine thestrength, quantity and kind of explosives, the most effective way ofusing them, and the depth and spacing of the holes, for best everywhere are experimenting on their own account. Manyare already claiming that subsoil plowing with explosives will be acommon custom in a few years, and will represent millions of dollarsin increased crops from lands already under cultivation, and moremillions from land now producing nothing but weeds and consideredentirely worthless. Along with this increase in land production, 65. PREPARING THE LAND FOR CROPS will be a reduction in the expense of draining and irrigating; be-cause, when hard subsoils are properly shattered with explosives,the surplus water falling in rainy seasons sinks down to the lowersoils, and does not need to be drained off. Neither is it necessaryin dry seasons to provide water by means of irrigating to keep thecrops from drying up, because the water which has settled deep inthe ground during the heavy rains is drawn up in the dry seasonby the plant roots as they need it. Forty-nine per cent., representing about two and one-half mil-lion bales, of the damage done to the 1909 cotton crops was dueto either excessive or insufficient moisture. This loss could havebeen largely prevented by blasting the subsoil so that it could absorbthe surplus water in wet weather and retain it for the dry weather,when the plants need it. In some places the subsoil is so close to the surface, and so hard,that the plant
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