[lazide]

Heavy machinery (bull dozers, excavators) have per-hour costs. Both in machine operations, and in fuel. It is usually in the several hundred to thousands of dollars per hour, depending on the size of the machines.

Clearing forested rocky soil is right up there in the ‘worst case’ scenario, time and wear and tear wise. It might take 80+ hours in some cases to clear a couple acres. That is very expensive.

With dynamite, it might take a quarter of that. Equipment requirements are usually much less - a big drill, and whatever needed to transport the dynamite and caps to the site, pretty much. And dynamite (if you aren’t dealing with all the paperwork), isn’t particularly expensive either.

As long as you don’t need to worry about fly rock, shrapnel, complaining neighbors, etc.