CLEARING FARM LAND 15 



used to dig a trench and a bulldozer to push stones into the trench and bury 

 them, costs were over $200 per acre for the machinery. Boulder and stone re- 

 moval was more expensive than stump, brush, or woodland clearing for com- 

 parable purposes. 



In cases involving a few scattered boulders on hay or cropland the costs of 

 removal ranged from $20 to $40 per acre for the bulldozer and $5 to $10 per acre 

 for picking stones. In one instance about 100 boulders were removed irom 8 

 acres of hayland at a cost of $17 per acre. Scattered boulders were removed 

 from vegetable land in southeastern Massachusetts with a large bulldozer at a 

 cost of $35 per acre on land with 25 boulders per acre. Disposal of boulders 

 was sometimes a problem on crop fields since considerable space was needed 

 around the field boundary for them. Generally there were swamps or areas of 

 waste land into which the boulders could be pushed. 



Figure 8, 

 Fruit Tree Being Pushed Oui by Bulldozer. 



Removing Apple Trees 



Bulldozers and power shovels have been used to remove old apple trees to 

 make space for new orchards and to thin bearing orchards by removing alternate 

 rows of trees. Costs have ranged from 30 to 50 cents per tree for removal and in 

 recent years the sale of cordwood has paid the cost of cutting and removal. 



In one operation a 20-year orchard was thinned and 240 trees in alternate 

 rows taken out with a large bulldozer in about 10 hours at a cost of 36 cents per 

 tree. Cordwood was cut, the brush burned, and stumps hauled away on a 

 stoneboat. More space and light were available for the remaining 27 trees per 

 acre. 



Old apple trees up to two feet in diameter were removed from a stony loam 

 soil with a small power shovel at a cost of 40 cents per tree. The method used 

 was to push the tree over with the bucket against the trunk about 10 feet off the 

 ground. The bucket was then placed under the roots to lift the tree out. Trees 

 were dropped once or twice to shake dirt from the roots. In this operation the 



