[AT] On losing farm land

[Steve W.]

I remember fondly picking stone by hand out of my folks
garden.....ZZZZZZZZZ  Oh time to wake up...

D$%N Rocks, My dad bought his place in Mapletown in 1975, in '76 he and
mom decided they wanted to grow a garden since dad wasn't real well paid
and veggies were better than potatoes/eggs eggs/potatoes etc..  The
garden was just behind the house and was about 75'X 170' . Dad was given
the old F20 off his fathers farm (I still have it) to repair and we used
a 2 bottom John Deere trip plow to break the
ground and an old set of trailer drags to smooth it out, then came the
time to pick stone. We used an old homebuilt trailer (about 5X8 with 3
foot sides) behind the tractor. The average yield of stones was between
7-8 loads per year or close to 14-15 tons per year. Most were regular
stone but we found out a few years later that the are was used as a fill
site by the town and that was why we found asphalt and road debris along
with the stones.  We removed enough stone that the garden area now sits
a full foot and a half lower than the rest of the area even after adding
manure and compost and more dirt. I can remember my chore list including
picking a load of stones over a couple days.  We also found a few
boulders that we drug out and dropped in the small creek behind the
house. On the far point of the place was where we would dump/unload the
trailer. Over the years I was there (about 18) we dumped enough stone to
shift that little creek almost 25 feet. Oh and this was not a dump
trailer, we just backed it over the high bank above the creek and more
or less let the stone slide off, occasionally popping the tractors
clutch to move the stones faster. We also used a converted horse drawn
JD sickle bar to mow the lawn the first year or two. Then dad got a pair
of push mowers. Nothing like mowing over 2 acres of lawn with a 20 inch
push mower.

Steve Williams
Near Cooperstown NY


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cecil E Monson" <cmonson at hvc.rr.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 3:49 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] On losing farm land


> > I put a new veggie garden in thie year. I put it in an area that was
>
> theoritically clear of stones but my 15' X 25' garden yielded a pile
of
>
> stones 15' long by 3' high and maybe 4' deep.  A few were too large
for
>
> me to extract with the plow or my large steel pry bars.... They say I
>
> live at the endpoint of the last ice age, so all of the stone was
dumped
>
> off in this region.
> >
> > Rob Gray
> > NE PA
>
> If you find any that look like they came from here, you don't
> have to ask if we want them back. You can have them.  ;-)
>
> I'm hoping to have a look at Galway Bay and see what Larry is
> talking about this fall. We have reservations and hope to go. Flying
> in to Dublin and coming back out of Shannon which is just south of
> Galway. I doubt their rocks are much worse than we have on some of our
> property though, Larry. We have lots of places it would be hard to get
> a steel fence post in the ground. One thing about rocks, the old
timers
> used to say it takes rocks to grow nice potatoes. No wonder the Irish
> depend on potatoes - they don't have any choice.
>
> Cecil
>
> -- 
> The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
> what you said.
>
> Cecil E Monson
> Lucille Hand-Monson
> Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole
>
> Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment
>
> Free advice
>
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