{"id":24320,"date":"2023-05-26T11:47:23","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=24320"},"modified":"2023-05-26T11:51:05","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:51:05","slug":"stump-fences-25-cents-per-stump-ugly-as-a-stump-fence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=24320","title":{"rendered":"STUMP FENCES — 25 CENTS PER STUMP…’UGLY AS A STUMP FENCE”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EPISODE 822    \u201cUGLY AS A STUMP FENCE\u201d <\/div>\n
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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
May 23, 2023<\/div>\n

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NOTE TO READERS\u2026SORRY FOR DELAY, COMPUTER ROUBLE<\/div>\n

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\u201cUGLY AS A STUMP FENCE\u201d\u2026expression coined in 19th century<\/div>\n

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EUREKA\u2026.WE FOUND A STUMP FENCE , MAY 25, 2023\u2026.SIXTH LINE<\/div>\n

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Marjorie Likes to deviate en route to the farm.  Takes longer.  I prefer the fastest direct route<\/div>\n
and complain when she finds a new road.   But not today.  We cut up the sixth line from Steeles<\/div>\n
and lo and behold discovered the remains of a stump fence.  Skeletons from the distant past.<\/div>\n
Deep distant past.  Stump fences were common  a century ago.  Survivors of the onerous<\/div>\n
task of clearing land by new immigrants,  Pioneer farms were not pretty.  Before a crop could be<\/div>\n
grown the old growth forests had to be cleared.  Doing so was simple but ugly.  Farmers <\/div>\n
with axes cut the living bark from the towering white pine, oaks and maples.  Without bark<\/div>\n
the trees died.  That took time\u2026perhaps a year of two.  So pioneer farms were covered with<\/div>\n
the skeletons of dead trees.   Some were useful and were squared into beams for barns.  Most<\/div>\n
however were not. <\/div>\n

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So they stood like dead soldiers.  Or fell and were butchered trunk from root. <\/div>\n
Even then they were not moved.  They had imbedded earth and could not be lifted<\/div>\n
easily.  Farmers had to wait years\u2026yes years\u2026.until the roots dried out and the imbedded earth<\/div>\n
fell away.  Then they could be hauled to fence rows to form fields.    Mass of roots faced out<\/div>\n
and trunks faced in.   Today there are still survivors of these root fences\u2026some nearly 200<\/div>\n
years old.   And today root fences are considered charming.  When they were constructed by<\/div>\n
farmers with oxen or horses the root fences seem to have been considered ugly, hence<\/div>\n
the expression \u201cugly as a stump fence\u201d .<\/div>\n

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In 1850 stop Clearing was a business.  Huge triangle root lifters were centred over the cropses then oxen or horses were<\/div>\n
used with the help of chin toilet the stumps.  profitable at 25 cents  a root.l  Twenty five cents!  A  dollar in 1850 was worth $39 in our<\/div>\n
terms.  Stop pulling was a good business.   Farmers often had to wait until they could afford to hire<\/div>\n
a stump [uller.<\/div>\n

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Stump Remover: Source unknown.<\/p>\n

” data-medium-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg?w=504″ class=”size-full wp-image-4964″ src=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg?w=736″ alt=”” srcset=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg 504w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg?w=150 150w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/stumppullers.jpg?w=300 300w” sizes=”(max-width: 504px) 100vw, 504px”>Oxen dragging a felled tree (1846), Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. R9266-250 Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana <\/p>\n

” data-medium-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=736″ class=”wp-image-4961″ src=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=450&h=308″ alt=”” width=”450″ height=”308″ srcset=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=450&h=308 450w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=150&h=103 150w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg?w=300&h=205 300w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/oxen-dragging-felled-tree.jpg 760w” sizes=”(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px” style=”color: rgb(109, 109, 109); font-size: 16px;”>Burning Fallen Trees in A Girdled Clearing:
Engraving by Bennett, W. J. (William James), 1787-1844;
Artist Harvey, George, 1806-1876. Sir, Library and Archive of Canada<\/p>\n

” data-medium-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg?w=228″ data-large-file=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg?w=364″ class=”size-full wp-image-4959″ src=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg?w=736″ alt=”” srcset=”https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg 364w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg?w=114 114w, https:\/\/gwentuinman.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/burning-fallen-trees-in-a-girdled-clearing.jpg?w=228 228w” sizes=”(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px” style=”color: rgb(109, 109, 109); font-size: 16px;”><\/h1>\n

FAR RIGHT ENGRAVING BY W.J. BENNETT, 1787-1844<\/div>\n

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Mrs. Anna Jameson\u2019s described a girdled forest she saw on the main road between Hamilton and Branford. \u201c[For] a space of about three miles, bordered entirely on each side by dead trees, which had been artificially blasted by fire or girdling. It was a ghastly forest of tall white spectres, strangely contrasting with the glowing luxurious foliage all around\u2026Without exactly believing the assertion of the old philosopher, that a tree feels the first stroke of the axe, I know I never witness nor hear that first stroke without a shudder; and as yet I cannot look on with indifference, far less share the Canadian\u2019s exultation, when these huge oaks, these umbrageous elms and stately pines, are lying prostrate, lopped of all their hours, and piled in heaps with the brushwood, to be fired,\u2014or burned down to a charred and blackened fragment,\u2014or standing leafless, sapless, seared, ghastly, having ben \u2018girdled\u2019 and left to perish.\u201d (Anna Jameson: Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 1838, Vol. II, pp. 102-3)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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\"File:Photographupload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/2\/2d\/Photograph_of_Stump_Fence_Around_Fields_on_a_Farm_Near_White_Cloud%2C_Michigan_-_NARA_-_2129273.jpg?20121002084120<\/a> 2x” data-file-width=”1383″ data-file-height=”1077″ class=””><\/h1>\n

AUGUST 1941, <\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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The stump or root fences on the Corner road remind me of fossil remains of mastodons, etc., exhumed and bleached in sun and rain.
\u2014 Henry David Thoreau, Journal (July 19, 1851)<\/p>\n

Both photos: \u201cA New England stump fence,\u201d ca. 1890-1901, by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.<\/p>\n

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I had heard of  \u2018stumperies<\/a>,\u2019 but not of stump fences (sometimes called root fences), however now I\u2019ve learned that . . .<\/p>\n

[s]tump fences, as their name implies, were made by dragging the stumps of trees to the edge of a field and placing them side by side, with their interlacing roots facing outward and their trunks inward. In the days when \u201cugly as a stump fence\u201d was a simile in common usage, the stump fence had its critics, but in 1837 one observer called it \u201ca singular fence\u2026needing no mending, and lasting the \u2018for ever\u2019 of this world.\u201d \u201cThe devil himself couldn\u2019t move a stump fence,\u201d farmers used to say, an opinion borne out by the fact that stump fences well over a hundred years old can still be seen in parts of Canada and in the Midwest.<\/p>\n

Stumps were often the product of the first clearing of the land, but stump fences didn\u2019t appear in the first generation of a settlement\u2019s fences because stumps need to sit in the ground for six to ten years before they are loose enough to be pulled out and hauled away. Extracting even a loosened stump was never easy; it required oxen and strong chains, something that many settlers lacked at first. In the 1800s, stump pulling would become a cash business and one way that a man could make a good living. Twenty-five cents a stump was the standard price in 1850 when men operating such mechanical stump pullers as the \u201cPortable Goliath,\u201d \u201cThe Little Giant,\u201d and \u201cRoger\u2019s Patent Extractor\u201d could extract from twenty to fifty stumps a day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 822    \u201cUGLY AS A STUMP FENCE\u201d    alan skeoch May 23, 2023 NOTE TO READERS\u2026SORRY FOR DELAY, COMPUTER ROUBLE \u201cUGLY AS A STUMP FENCE\u201d\u2026expression coined in 19th century EUREKA\u2026.WE FOUND A STUMP FENCE , MAY 25, 2023\u2026.SIXTH LINE Marjorie Likes to deviate en route to the farm.  Takes longer.  I prefer the fastest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}