Clearing new ground –We had 140 acres on our farm in Arkansas. My father purchased our farm over the course of years. The first purchase was when he mustered out of the Army. That was the land on which our house was located and it was 60 acres. The next track the land that he bought was across the road and it was 40 acres. He later bought a track land behind the 40 acres which was 20 acres. Around half of the 60 acre plot was covered in timber. The 40 acre plot had somewhere between five and 10 acres which were timber. The 20 acre plot was all timber.

The first 60 acres had somewhere between 20 to 30 acres that had trees covering it. It was this land that we were cutting down trees and turning the land into agriculture farm land the clearing of trees was done mostly in the winter months. We would cut down the large trees and turn them into wood to burn in the wood heater which we used to heat our home. The smaller limbs and underbrush we piled up to dry out and we would have large bond fires when the wood was dry enough to burn. This was time consuming since we cut the trees down with a cross cut saw. Also it was hard work but most work on a farm is farm work