william wixon wrote:
hey, this is a question i've had on my mind for a long time and have
been wanting to ask someone about it (but have been afraid to, worried
i'll be thought of as an idiot), hopefully there's someone somewhere
who has actual experience with this.

is it possible to pull small (6 or maybe even 8 inch diameter at the
base) trees OUT of the ground (roots and all) with a winch?

i don't have enough money to buy a backhoe. i've dug trees out by
hand before and that's a lot of time consuming hard work. i was
wondering if there might be a cheaper alternative to a backhoe and a
easier alternative to a shovel.

these guys make a gasoline powered 12000 pound winch. i'm wondering
if 12000 is enough. (i would imagine it is, though i don't want to
buy the damn thing adn find out it's NOT.)

http://www.winchesplus.com/winch-G120.html

here, my specific application is, i've got a swamp that's cluttered
with trees and shrubs, i'd like to yank 90% of the trees out of that
swamp and the areas that border the swamp. i've done this before (3
or 4 trees) with my compact farm tractor (24 horse) with a cable and
two pulleys and it worked, but it just BARELY worked, traction is a
problem (even carrying ballast). i have no idea how many pounds of
pull i was achieving on the cable using the tractor. the trees that
grow in the swamp have very shallow root systems and it's possible to
just kinda yank them off like the SURFACE of the ground, but they're
heavy.

does anyone here have any experience with this? or could you direct
me to some other discussion group where the guys there would have
experience with this?

I've done trees of that size before with a one ton engine crane. These
were evergreens if it makes any difference, I think they tend to be
shallow rooting. It wouldn't pull them out on its own but would lift the
stump enough so you could tell where the next large root was holding on
and dig down to cut that, then repeat. It didn't take long before you
got the final crack and the stump lifted free. For the lifting I drilled
a 1/2 inch hole through the top of the stump and put some steel bar
through to attach the lifting rope.