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Show DYNAMITE HELPS : IN MISSOURI FARMING Production of forty-1 live bushels ol corn to toe acre wnere live buehele had been the usual crop waa the result of an experiment with dynamitv en the Jaeper county poor farm last aea-eoa. aea-eoa. So promising Is the motnoo. that a powder company haa offered to give . enough powder to perry on a Ave-acra leal with different rpe next season. Corn, wheat, oats and cow peas will be grown on the tract, beveral a per county farm-era farm-era will make Individual expertmenta. To John Parker, superintendent of the farm and foremen of the county experiment experi-ment farm, operated under the direction of the state agricultural college, le due ' the credit of the new method of dealing with hard pen and shooting Ufa Into sour, hard and water tight soils. Ths Jasper county poor farm la well named. It must have been a county court of practical Jokers that est It aside, for there le not a poorer piece of ground In the country. It le the type of soli that Is called "poor white" and "white trash.'' besides a few unprintable namea. by the men who have tried to arow croDS on It: a flat farm, probably of ahale formation, with a hard pea under it like a. rubber blanket. "I waa paaelnr a- neighbors house one . day." aald Mr. Parker, "and I aaw him draining a pond by boring a bole In the bottom of it and putting In a stick of dynamite. It gave me the Idea, for I told mveeif that I had a pond right In the middle of tbc Aeid where 1 wsa going to rant corn, and I aat to work to drain To ao thle he bought an old fashioned Inch and a half auger, had the ehsft mads lensr by welding on a piece of steel, obtained ob-tained come dynamite, caps and fuse and went to work. The first hole wss made four feet deep, the one stick of dynamite waa put In It and the dirt tamped around the fuee with a broomstick. When the dynamite exploded H made a raised spot, like a giant potato hill, thirty feet across, but did not sven blow the fuse or make any boles en top of the ground. T lie tape line showed the ground crst-Med for gfteen feet from the holee. The reet of an acre waa treated la thle wav, plowed and planted la com. Ths result waa very eatlafactory. That particular par-ticular acre waa the loweet pert of the fic-id too low to drain- All throuah a wet ; aprlnx that-arre ef ground wss as dry aa the rest. Later In the eummer. during a drought, It staved greener than the rest of the field, ahowlna that the water wee etored below and waa drawa up by rantllary attraction te feed the corn. V. h-n the corn waa husked out the acre which prevtoualv had yielded only live buehela yielded forty-five buahela, lueelng that Mr. Parker haa done on the -term convlncee htm that the soil a exactly the kind to respond te the treet-ment. treet-ment. The top soil Is only about a font dn. then comes a foot and a half of hard pan as touah as Is usually found, and then a tayer of gravel and day that lata tte water down through. "The breaking un nf the hardpan was Just whst was needed." eald Mr. Parker "It let the water down and gave the enll air to correct Its sourness and held the water below at a time when If was needed The reeult wae entirely satisfactory. "The blastlne reoulred only a day to do the work and t3 worth of supplies to put the boles thirty feet apart. A total ex-rne ex-rne of about IS made the difference be-tw-en a good erop and no crop at all." The experiment came to general notice when ten prise winning eere of corn were exhibited at the county corn ahow. hearing hear-ing the label "grown on dynamited bard-pen." |