Once upon a time....digging up stumps with an "excavator"

[npalen]

Reckon those old boys cut down the tree to build the digger, used the left over wood to fire up the boiler and then dug out the stump? Sure would be a lot of work for one tree.

 

[Egon]

Interesting.

Mounting the digger on log rails is interesting. It could clear a swath the width of the boom swing.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Reckon those old boys cut down the tree to build the digger, used the left over wood to fire up the boiler and then dug out the stump? Sure would be a lot of work for one tree.

Hah! That's funny! Reckon they used the steam engine to power the sawmill that cut up the tree that made the beams that they used to make the digger and fired up the boiler that powered the digger that dug up the stump?

 

[npalen]

I'm thinking that the whole thing was a ruse camouflaging a still.

 

[EddieWalker]

9 guys in the picture, so I'm guessing that's how many it took to run the machine? Makes me respect and admire how much effort they put into clearing the land back then!!!!

 

[cqaigy2]

Reckon those old boys cut down the tree to build the digger, used the left over wood to fire up the boiler and then dug out the stump? Sure would be a lot of work for one tree.

And twice as much for two trees. :thumbsup:

 

[oosik]

Would make the price/time to clear a twenty acre pasture astronomic. And from the looks of that old pic - its simply a field of stumps.

 

[mapper]

Much of the best river bottom farmland in western Washington was covered in old growth forest when it was originally settled. Trees that were over 100 feet tall and up to 12 feet in diameter. The settlers had a technique of drilling two intersecting holes in the trunk of the tree and putting live coals from a fire made with vine maple in the holes. A week or two later the tree would come crashing down. The remains were then burned as well. Later on when the logging equipment became big enough to handle the large timber they would farm around the stumps. Hops were a crop that allowed the farmers to utilize the stumps to lean long poles against them as an improvised trellis.
Those old time farmers were some tough and persistent individuals.

 

[MossRoad]

My guess is they were using the steam shovel for ditching a trench the width of the rails, and the stump was in the way.

 

[Doofy]

The guy with his hand in his pocket resembles Jesse James. It is no wonder he turned to a life of crime. That looks to be some brutal work.