Land Clearing Question

[peri_simmons]

The land we have is about 15 kilometers west of Bouctouche. Hope that gives you an idea of approximately where it is.

We want to build a couple small cottages, we were thinking either stawbale or cob, and do our best to make a living off the land. There's only the two of us.

We've had a lot of success with small scale gardening growing a variety of fruits and vegis, and have raised both ducks and chickens for eggs to eat and for pest control (although they do take their share of the greenery). Maybe a few goats, and a yearly pig raised for meat.

We'd like to do some small scale solar (and yes we know the latitude isn't optimum for solar but what the hey, we would only need a little electricity. And we thought we'd harvest roof water for our water (we already do that to a limited extent for the poultry and the garden). That's what we'd like to start with and go from there, or maybe fall flat on our faces. We'll find out in the doing if we have what it takes to break free.
Pictures of land in New Brunswick

[kitaye]

Chainsaw and a stump puller. Then you can bush hog the brush. Be selective in your cutting so you can keep habitat and wind screens.

[goatlady]

Your best bet is going to be bulldoze a buildng site and whatever area you want for pasture maybe. Just cutting off the trees at ground level will cause the roots to regenerate more trees! Or maybe get the Province forestry service to give you some help, maybe a controlled burn the bulldoze the stumps. The land will regenerate especially with some sunlight getting in so ground cover can have a chance. You're going to have to bulldoze a road of some sort anyway to get building materials onto the property, so take time to figure out where you want to build what and where you want your entrance/driveway to be so you only pay the dozer once for travel time to the site.

[peri_simmons]

When I look up stump puller I get boat propellors or old trucks. I the old truck with a strap or chain the stump puller (I hope it's not the boat propellor)?

[Snowdancer]

There's some info about stump pullers but more about stump grinders that you might find useful

http://www.thestumponline.com/enemies.htm

[lgslgs]

Yum! Looks like good snacks for goats!

They'll eat the vines and brambles first, then they'll take down small saplings. They'll also prune all of the junky shoots off of stumps and trees.

Lynda

Here's a bit more on what goats will do: Eliminating blackberries in the Pacific NW

[The Paw]

bulldozer would work fine. If you want to save windbreaks etc., and minimize the destruction, you could use a Bobcat. Those look like poplars, which will push over easy enough. And, being poplars they grow like weeds, so if you do knock a few too many down, they will grow back fast.

[Ramblin Wreck]

I'd use a loader or dozer, but from personal experience, I've found it is sometimes easier to knock the big stuff down than the little stuff. Good luck, and best wishes on project. New Brunswick is a pretty place.

[haypoint]

I owned 20 acres that had grown a lot more than yours. The State Forester marked the trees for me to improve the woodlot. He had me cut all of the multiple trunks, except one. This allowed the roots to feed one tree and it grew straight and fast. Often times a dozer will remove your topsoil along with the stumps and then getting the dirt covered stumps to burn is difficult. I'd suggest you brush hog what you can, make firewood out of the bigger stuff. About the only sure way to stop the continued growth of brush is chemical brush killer. If you won't do that, plan a lot of hand root chopping. Since you need a homesite, a dozer could do that area and you could manage to get the dirt from most of the stumps and make a burn pile out of the brush and stumps. Making firewood out of anything close to real firewood surves to help clean up the land while providing some free heat.

[palani]

Locate a dealer who would be willing to rent a tree axe and a skid steer loader. The tree axe is a hydraulic shear that takes down trees to 20" diameter flush with the ground. Dribble some Tordan on the roots.

[fishhead]

There are bush hogs that will gobble those trees up into little pieces.

If you only want a site for a home why not clear just that footprint and work on the rest later as you get a better feel for the place? Once they're gone they're gone.

[MELOC]

i would contact a pulp company. you may be surprised at what they may take.

[Abe R Crombie]

Peri,I am presently clearing approx. 2 acres and have done the same in another area of the property several years ago.I have been using a spacing saw for anything up to 3-4 inch,which leaves few trees bigger to cut with the power saw.I am saving anything good for firewood and the rest I started burning.Leaves alot less mess as you would if it were dozed.For the roots an Excavator with root rake makes a quick job and if dry they can shake alot of the earth out before it's piled to burn.Big roots may not burn very well.
Hope this helps,
Abe

[Tiffin]

peri, We have many of these mounds also on 14 acres that hasn't been mowed for 4 years or so. We found ants in them. Should be interesting when we get to brush hog this area hopefully next year. Right now the area is landlocked by steep and deep ruts. We are trying to get someone to build us a road up to this area. But here in central NY it has been nothing but rain (right now in fact) so no one can do anything.

[RedneckPete]

Get someone in with an excavator with a root bucket and a thumb. Get them to make piles of the brush, and burn it while they are there. It will probably cost you several thousand bucks to return this land to a "clean" usable state.

Alternately there are excavator (even skidsteer) mounted shredders that would turn this entire mess into a thin carpet of wood chips, but you would be left with several thousand stumps.

When looking for a machine and operator, bigger is better. (The machine, not the operator) I would bring in a minimum of a 20 ton machine for this job. (ie Cat 320 or equivalent)

Best of luck.

Pete

[ponyboy123]

I wonder what you plan on using the land for? If u in no hurry, pigs can take care of lots of those pesky roots. Bulldozer makes a mess but gets the job done quick. Hiring or hand thining is expensive and/or time consuming. By the looks of the pics, no saleable wood exists on the land. Looks like a bulldozer and a couple good size burn piles. Hope ur not in too much of a hurry. By the way, what part of New Brunswick is it. I live in neibouring province, Nova Scotia. I also spent 5 years in N.B. doing my bachelors at UNB. Lastly welcome to the maritimes.

Ponyboy

[Terri]

This looks a lot like like my land!

The people to the East of me had their land bulldozed. It left a BIG mess but the land was healed by the end of the summer.

The people to the West of me rented a doo-hicky that sawed the trees off at ground level ( a tree axe? I do not know!) and their extended family spent a weekend cutting down and piling up little trees. They had either 7 or 15 acres: I forget what size their lot is.

Both methods worked very well.

I have not yet done anything effective to my land: I tried spraying the trees in one end with tree killer but osage oranges are notoriously tough and it just set them back a little.

[moonwolf]

Originally Posted by peri_simmons

I have nine acres of land in New Brunswick (the one in Canada, not New Jersey). Bought it years ago when land there was really cheap, and at that time the land had just been cleared, so I figgured by the time I got around to homesteading the site there would no doubt be some brush that would have to be cleared.

Well, I finally got around to visiting the land again just this year in preparation for moving up there in the spring, and found that the word brush is wholly inadequate for what has grown up on the land. I am the proud and distraught owner of a bajillion 10 to 15 foot high trees, multiple trunks branching out from the ground, each trunk about as thick as my arm.

What is the best way to clear this mess? Any suggestions would be appreciated. It might be too much for a Bush Hog, and I'm even considering having a bulldozer go in to clear it, but I don't want to go off half-cocked. It would be a monstrous job hand clearing it, but I'm worried that a bull-dozer could damage the land.

The link at the end of the post goes to the three pictures just to give an idea of how much growth there is. Two of the pictures are of the land, the third picture is of a mysterious mound I found that I think must be an insect mound. Be nice if someone could identify that too! There were many of these mounds.

Many thanks!

the mounds are probably ant hills. from the growth pictures, looks mostly like young growth poplar.

9 acres isn't a whole lot, depending on how fast you need it cleared. You didn't mention what you were going to do after you cleared it. For a building spot, you'd obviously need it clear of stumps, roots and any growth.

To do anything in a hurry would obviously take a dozer type of equipment and push into piles to burn.
The other way is if you do it over time, I'd go at the bigger trees with a chainsaw and pile into woodstove lenghts for firewood. Cut it low at the ground so you can cut above it with a mower deck or brush hog behind your tractor. Keep it mowed to eventually displace the saplings coming up with the natural undergrowth of grass or clover. the small stumps will eventually rot away. the smaller saplings under 2" diameter can be easily taken down with a cutting blade on a good hand held brush cutter. I've cleared lots of acerage for trails using nothing but hand tools like a large pruner, swedish brush axe, and small chain saw and kept it clear by going over that with a medium sized garden tractor with a mower deck raised to 4 inches.

to smooth out the ant hills you might try this. take a good 5 gallon bucketfull (with lid) by shovelling the loose dirt and many ants from one hill. Take another empty bucket to a new ant hill and fill that with shovels full of dirt and ants from that hill. Take and dump the bucket of ants and dirt from the other hill to the new ant hill. Do the same with the bucket full to the other ant hill. Usually what happens is the 'newcomer' ants will battle out at each mound to where they kill each other off and if you want you can push level that mound with a back blade on your tractor. Ants won't usually bother to come back and rebuild a big mound if you keep that area clear by mowing or pasturing animals. I've seen also foxes that love to attack ant hills, so they do have some predators.

[Aintlifegrand]

DH, Myself and three teenage children personally cleared 2.5 acres of land just like this and in some cases worse as the land had been logged a couple of years before and they had just left the old logs that they didn't want where they fell. The vines and brush over took the whole mess. We had 15 foot pines everywhere and sumac, poision ivy and wisteria vines deeply wrapped around all those trees...Not knowing anything about it at the time, we bought a DR brush trimmer, chainsaw, ax's, maddox's etc and off we went. It took 4 months of weekends, and to tell you the truth was the absolute worse thing about the whole building process. It delayed our building, we got ate up with every bug known to man, 2 of us got heat exhaustion ( july in louisiana ), aggravation that as soon as some parts were cleared, then the mowing had to start to keep it from growing back or that the tools were having to be replaced frequently, the fires to burn everything were scary and dangerous. Anyway, my dad had said from the beginning...hire a bulldozer but I was afraid of the damage to the land and topsoil..but unable to clear the remaining land (7.5 acres) by hand, I relented and had the bulldozer come in. He finished in two days. We had several truckloads of top soil brought in and this is the prettiest part of my land. My suggestion...hire a bulldozer.

[fantasymaker]

Trackhoes do a real neat clearing job and are right handy for digging a basement you might wanna have one do both jobs at once. If you are going to run sheep or goats dont get in a rush about the brush . Just have the area where you want a fence cleared at the same time then as you feed the stock just drop a few trees each day for feed they will clean it well and keep the stumpage eaten down till it dies. and the trees will dry out and you can use them for firewood or fence posts.