Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living The stone boat?

I can't find an online image, I've seen one.

Used to drag a large stone/rock out of the field.

Anyone else remember them?

I've seen pics, but we dont have rocks like that in our part of the country. Little iron ore scattered here and there, but that's about all.

That's it!

How we do it now.

When did fields stop growing rocks?

John, I think they push up with the frost.

One spring during my youth, there was a father/son clean-up night at the baseball field. One of the tasks assigned the younger boys was to police the infield (all dirt - no grass) and pick up pebbles and other assorted debris. Soon there was a boy kicking at a rock embedded along the first-base line. Soon there was a gathering of boys scratching at the dirt with sticks. This brought some fathers into the picture. Soon there was a shovel. This moved on to more fathers and more shovels. As more and more dirt was removed and more rock exposed, a tractor and chain appeared. With dire warnings to the assembled multitude to stand back, the tractor exerted its influence without effect. A larger tractor was enlisted, as were a number of retired telephone poles for propping up the rock as it grudgingly loosened its grip on Mother Earth. At this point, it reconsidered its cooperation and a bit of extra effort on the part of the tractor proved that the chain being employed was not up to the task. The splintering of the poles as the rock returned to its original position provided the fathers with a great opportunity to lecture the sons as to how that could have been them had they been so stupid as to be in the hole when the chain broke. I mean, we were dumb kids, but none of us had ever given the least consideration to being in that hole. Eventually, enough strength of machine and chains were brought into play to transfer the rock into a permanent home behind the bleachers back of home.

True, but I don't see people picking rocks like they used to.

I believe it's because tractor cabs are too far off the ground these days.

By the way, great album, Marty!

Me!

Been there done that along with my two sisters and two brothers. Pulling a burlap feed sack and filling it with as many rocks until you couldn't move it any more.
We cleaned up forty acres like that.

Even after fifty plus years, it still remains as the worst job I ever had while growing up on a farm.

Using a stone boat is how I taught my younger sister to drive standard... Put her on the tractor while I threw rocks onto the stone boat. She got the clutch work down real well that day. I think she was about ten and I was 17 or so....So glad we are now no-till and very little rock picking!!

My buddy has a rock picker for the front of his skid loader. The only use I ever had for one was to train mules in harness. Put enough rocks on and they sure as heck can't run off with it and once you get them tired enough dragging it around, they are easier to teach new things to.

I think the farm I was on had most of the rocks in the fields removed several generations before me.

I'd love to have a bunch of those!

There's not a single rock on the ranch here.

Makes driving T-posts pretty easy though.

We use all of the rocks.

Filling mud holes, the huge boulders go someplace out of the way.

My father rented a farm. A gig rockpile in the middle of it, so they hauled rocks off for over a day.

At the bottom was this really big rock. Back then he could hire a man to blow it up. Then they picked up rocks for another day!