A little more clarification

I totally know where you are coming from about clearing too much land. But I truley believe this is an entirely different situation. Please understand that this is northern Minnesota, not wide open farm country. The average person living here (including myself) is extremely conservation minded.

My little 40 acres of land sits about smack dab in the middle of a huge 20,000 acre state forest. The entire area, even outside the state forest is heavily forested (the entire NE corner of Minnesota actually). Logging, replanting and re-growth are one, if not the most primary natural recources industry here.

Although the area is heavily forested, virtually none of the timber is virgin. We took care of most of the massive red and white pines in the 1800s and early 1900s. The habitat here today is nothing like it was prior to settlement. Even the type wildlife has changed.

Most wildlife, especially the white-tailed deer, are creatures that do not particularly favor areas that are strictly wooded nor strictly prarrie, but they do flourish in those areas of transition between the two. They need the heavy woods for cover, but they also need the fields for food.

Even the Minnesota department of natural recources promotes and have at least partially funded thousands of "small" clear-cuts for wildlife habitat improvement. We're not talking farm field here, but very small and secluded clearings.

My 10 acre clear-cut is not wide open, it is not just one big square or rectangle, but rather more like a meadow that meanders over small hills with many small fingers of bramble protruding out into the clearing. Of the ten acres, two of them were not dozed, and are coming back as thick Aspen/balsam re-growth. This area serves both as heavy cover, and a very valuable winter food source for the wildlife. There is also yet another small area that has been left for milkweed. You would be amazed at the number of Monarch butterflies there in the summertime.

In the past 5 or 6 years since this clearing was first planted in clover, the wildlife numbers have virtually exploded. The difference has been phenomenal. The clover did very well for the first two or three years, but then weeds such as Canadian thistle and pigweed began to take hold.

I already consider my project a huge success, it just needs a little tending to again.

Thanks for the advice folks!

Matt

Having said this your major problem remains to be those rocks. You can build top soil by adding nutrients and plowing down vegetation. It will just surprise you what can be achived with a mix of that little bit of good top soil you have mixed with the clay and organic matter. With the harsh winters you have in northern MN those rocks will keep coming up for years. Winter frosts just keep heaving them up. I've seen 2,500 ton of rocks per acre come off land like that. That my friend will cost a lot of money in 2005.

I used to operate in conjunction with my farm a custom mechanical rock picking business. Had two entirely different machines for different applications. One machine I had in cost $21. per hour just in pickup wear parts. Anyway you tackle it rock picking is expensive business.

I once had an engineer take me to a 10 acre site. He wanted 2' of rock free topsoil. I advised the first item he should get was pumping equipment. This was gravley soil with a lake nearby and level of soil was only 20' above lake water level. I advised that by the time we achived 2' of stone free soil, we would be below water level. He didn't believe me. I picked 45,000 ton of rocks off that 10 acres, lowered the entire 10 acres 2', and he still had more stones in the top 2' than you would ever use ag equipment on. Needless to say he gave up, and this project was funded by one of our major international corperations.

I'll talk to one of my neighbors down the road a few miles. He owns an exotic animal farm and also has a small herd of beef cattle. He may be able to supply what I need. Another task will be to locate a manure spreader that I can buy or borrow that will fit down the narrow winding trail behind my tractor.

The rocks are amazing. I spent the entire first summer hand picking them from the clearing, day after day, load after load. It didn't cost me much money other than for the gas I used in my machinery to haul them to the pile, but my back, arms, and fingers definitely paid a fine price.

My rock pile is about 30-40 feet in diameter, and about 6-8 feet high. The dozer also pushed a few of the Volkswagon sized ones into the pile. By the way, it totally surprised me how many critters ended up calling that rock pile home!

I'm not concerned with anything from softball sized and smaller, but like you say, there are a few larger sized ones that have worked their way up to the surface again.

Thanks again!

Matt