Digging Ditches With Explosives

Farming today is a scientific business. Gone are the days of backbreaking toil and little to show for the effort. 'It's a machine and, George Wastney believes, an explosives age. On his property at Seabourne, Wakapuaka, George has a fair area of very heavy land. After heavy rainfall it is inundated and the water does not run off. The land had to be ditched, but the problem was that the land was too heavy for the use of a ditch digger. So George turned to explosives, and the results achieved can be seen on this page. Economically, the cost is about the same as a digger, but the time saving is far greater. An added benefit is that the spoil is evenly distributed over the surrounding area, whereas spoil brought up by a digger has to be distributed later. " The whole operation is made possible by the use of special fuse which burns at the rate of 20,000ft a second.

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A big "blam" as 260 charges go off

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The charges are laid in prepared holes, tamped, and connected to the main fuse

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George and his son Peter examine their handiwork after a blast