This is a stupid question but.....

[omegamike]

Unusual question I know but..... I'm trying to find out exactly how they cleared woods/trees in the 18th century. Obviously they cut them down at ground level but what about the roots? Would they leave them to rot naturally over a period of years or would they pull them out of the ground? They would have been big old trees and not coppice.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm researching a field that used to be woodland in the 1700's. Some finds were made by the farmer in the woods. But now the land is farmland. I'm wandering if the destruction of the woodland would have any bearing on finds being made now? Would the ground have been disturbed? or untouched?...... I told you it was a stupid question but any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[jay69hay]

dynamite

[omegamike]

Honestly! wouldn't that cost rather a lot of money in the 18th century? Several thousand tress = tons of dynamite wouldn't man power (horse and chain) be the preferred method. I was kind of hoping it was going to be something less "POW!!" so as not to damage anything in the ground

[jay69hay]

i think they only used dynamite for the BIG trees and horse and chain and man power for the rest to be honest

[moparado]

Not sure but i think dynamite was invented somewhere in the mid to late 1800s. Nitro would of been available only a little earlier than dynamite.
But good ol black powder would of definitely been available in the 18th century.

I agree with the others, probably shovels, horses/oxen, axes, chains and a lot of sweat. Maybe even some stump burning.
Most of the big roots if not pulled out and shallow enough were probably dug up and axed away above the plow line.

Blasting would probably of been an option for only the wealthiest land owners.
Interesting question.

[muddy mick]

dynamite

rather ironic really in that the Nobel peace prize was named after the man who invented dynamite, but ya a few years out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel

[Tombs]

dig up the roots and chop them wile the tree is being pulled by horse's a real bitch of a job iv done it with a 4x4 and winch. gunpowder wouldn't work very well for stump removal as it is actually a propellant and not an explosive which means it has to be in a barrel or some kind of sealed container for it to explode.
i think the amount of gun powder needed to rip or cut the tree roots wood be massive!
i had a miss spent child hood

[Iron Mask]

What a stupid question. But given such a stupid question it is very interesting and will be great to see the replies and get the answer.
Will watch with interest.

[DDazzzle]

I've seen this done in parts of the US where mechanical intervention was not permitted, as Tombs expertly pointed out its a real bitch, the removal of the logs was undertaken by a single horse to a roadway. The horses bore a close resemblance to the Suffolk Punch breed.

[Captainpugwash]

I have customer who breeds forest horses they look similar to shire horses but not as big. I was told that they were used for pulling fallen trees ect.

[roastedtoe]

Hmm...think of all the spare change falling out of pockets in all that effort to remove the trees. The ground had to be disturbed a lot if they were removing the roots (if), which you'd think they'd have to do if they wanted to till the land afterwards. But has the land been tilled since then for a few centuries? I would have thought that would have just made it a normal field by now to detect on? I wouldn't worry too much about finds being destroyed in the process of removing the trees, metal is haaaard, , I'd be more encouraged by the thought of all that effort and all those lost coins and the like as people with crap tailoring and holey pockets worked for ages on the field.

Once you get on it and detect and can compare it to other fields you've worked with different histories you'll know. Also, might be a chance of some interesting finds. People burying things at the base of those ancient trees and never coming back for them. I've dug a few little stashes up in woodland on the commons (back in the early months of having my md and feverish to detect anywhere I could, ) of London at the base of old trees.

You'll know when you get on it. Good luck!

[whigsvolt]

Well in 18th cent Scotland atleast, Oxen were the main source of work animals used for just about everything.
Horses were too expensive to own and they also needed supplamented feed for working where Oxen could survive with relatively lower grade food.

Much of the root structure of trees was left in the ground as even when the trees were cut the roots were able to continue draining boggy areas for quite some time, so was beneficial to the early farmers.
It was also not deemed neccessary to remove roots due to the huge availability of land for planting trees.
Incidently the trees when they were cut and im talking pine trees did not have huge root structures as still can be seen in some of the dead Caledonian pine forest,s areas where the roots can still be seen.
Oak, elm and Beach would have presented different problems but i have know knowledge of how they managed oak and the like.
Hope this helps.

[omegamike]

Thanks for the replies gents, greatly appreciated suppose I will just have to get on the field and see what turns up?

[ARGONAUTE]

Spruce (Picea) tree stumps will deteriorate very quickly due to a number of pathogenic and non-pathogenic fungii. Essentially these rot leaving a hole which caves in. If the are big trees ca. 40 yrs old, this can lead to a hole no deeper than 1.5 m deep. Pinus are more resistant and the institute I work at they find and date Forest stands back 500-600 yrs using these stumps, but mostly these are from forest fire locations and the stumps have been preserved to some extant by that process. Pinus do deteriorate they same way as Picea, but much more slowly. So it is more like was that they were left to deteriorate in situ

[Davidhod]

If the woodland was being cleared then it was cutting, digging, pulling (by horse) and maybe burning. But at that time most woodland wasn't harvested by clear felling. Big trees might be taken out individually for timber, and structural poles cut from coppice or pollard on rotation. In either case the roots would be left to rot or re-grow.

A managed, harvested woodland would be a busy place, coppicing, pollarding, charcoal burning, hunting, year after year after year. Probably as busy as most agricultural fields.

[Tombs]

good luck mate i hope they didnt drop anything in the stump holes cos otherwise you are going to be digging deep with the gpx

[Penncole]

I have seen the older generation of farmers or their farmhands in Somerset, remove the tree stump to ground level, then give it some time to dry out some, pile brushwood and such over it, set this alight and as they said, 'Lets it slow burn all the way down through its roots'. Results: A low mound of fine wood ash...I really cannot say if the roots went the same way. I never heard them complaining of ploughs snagging up thereafter ...on leftover roots.

[moparado]

Well in 18th cent Scotland atleast, Oxen were the main source of work animals used for just about everything.
Horses were too expensive to own and they also needed supplamented feed for working where Oxen could survive with relatively lower grade food.

Much of the root structure of trees was left in the ground as even when the trees were cut the roots were able to continue draining boggy areas for quite some time, so was beneficial to the early farmers.
It was also not deemed neccessary to remove roots due to the huge availability of land for planting trees.
Incidently the trees when they were cut and im talking pine trees did not have huge root structures as still can be seen in some of the dead Caledonian pine forest,s areas where the roots can still be seen.
Oak, elm and Beach would have presented different problems but i have know knowledge of how they managed oak and the like.
Hope this helps.

Don't know about elm or Beach trees but Oak trees have a relatively compact and shallow root system from what i've seen.
The woods on my property are primarily a tall Oak forest. Few years back in a continuous rainy pattern, the sandy soil here became water saturated and loosened to the point it couldn't support one of my big Oaks which was situated on the slope of a hill.
That gigantic maybe 80+ foot tree just toppled down roots and all. I was amazed at the small root ball supporting that big tree. The root ball couldn't of been more than a few diameters larger than the trunk of the tree. It sure made a lot of firewood!

[Kyle]

i would imagine that a combination of burning and cutting down would have been used - population growth would require the extra land.
then alternate the land between grazing and growing - giving chance for the land to replenish its minerals etc
i would have thought the roots were left - clear them were necessary etc

no help i know

[Cumbrian Fox]

Could this be the way they did it, this is how the American pioneers in the 18th century cleared woodland and as Irish and English were among the pioneers they would have had this information from the way things were done in the 17th century.

The space between trees in an old growth forest is much farther apart than trees grow today. A stand of old growth mature trees doesn't allow much sunlight in for sapplings so you find a very open understory.
Planting corn near the base of the tree helped to pop the roots of the dead tree out of the ground. After a couple of years of growing corn, pigs would be allowed to roam the area. Some farmers used poles or iron bars to poke holes under the stumps. The pigs would root under the stumps to get to the corn digging up the stumps in the process.


4696780_f520.jpg

[omegamike]

A picture paints a thousand words, thanks for that Dave. From the picture I don't think I'm too far off how I thought they did it. The bloke with the plough certainly isn't wasting any time is he!

[Kyle]

digressing - i know they were hard times graft wise... well every wise - but i'd still prefer to live in those days than nowadays with all the corruption and lies and materialistic shallowness.
id be the supervisor

[fertler]

digressing - i know they were hard times graft wise... well every wise - but i'd still prefer to live in those days than nowadays with all the corruption and lies and materialistic shallowness.
id be the supervisor

But you wouldn't have a detector What would you play with then????? Barrie

[Kyle]

fertler .....very true - im sure id think of something to play with - infact some here i suspect think im one