Correspondent Country Gentleman: I notice that your journal recently
gave currency to the "saltpetre method" of extracting stumps, and W.H.
White also recommends it in your columns. His method is to bore a hole
in the stump in the fall of the year, fill in the hole with saltpetre,
plug up till the following summer, then fill the hole with kerosene and
fire the stump. It is alleged that the saltpetre and kerosene will so
saturate the stump that it will be entirely consumed, roots and all.
This recipe has been floating around the press for years. It is usually
credited to the Scientific American, but that paper has several times
denied its paternity. The uselessness of the process can easily be
learned by trial. There are few more inflammable substances than pitch
and turpentine. The roots of pine stumps are saturated with these, but
it is impossible to burn them out. The addition of saltpetre would not
help much. Yet there are seasons when the soil and air are so dry that
hard wood stumps may be burned out without either saltpetre or kerosene.
We had such a year in 1881, when corn and clover standing uncut in the
field were burned. In some instances the curbing was burned out of wells
during terrible forest fires that raged in Michigan. If tried in such a
season the recipe would undoubtedly be successful. In any ordinary
season it is "no good."

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No matter how wretched a man may be, he is still a member of our common
species, and if he possesses any of the common specie his acquaintance
is worth having.

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