You might be taking the wrong approach considering a tree service. Try looking for contractors that clear land for development using specialized equipment. When they cleared the land behind me and across the street for development back in the 1990's, they brought in a giant machine that had sort of scissor like blades on the front, and which did pretty much everything to the tree, cut it, ground it up, and ground out the stump. It was sort of creepy but amazing. They cleared a ten acre parcel in one day. I can't imagine that it would cost anywhere near $20-$25 for this service. Look under "Land Clearing and Excavating" or "Excavating and Leveling" in the phone book or online. And, be sure to get multiple quotes and check references carefully.

The Iowa state extension service provides information to property owners on how to market the timber/excess trees on their land. This may be worth looking into as you could get paid for the removal of trees rather than paying someone else to remove them for you!

May not work for all situations and I'm not sure how they go about determining the marketability of the various ones designated by you for removal but again, probably worth investigating. At the outside, perhaps you could advertise to have the trees removed in exchange for their use as firewood - the you-cut, you burn market :-). Clearing woods for firewood is very popular in my rural area.

The high cost of tree removal is more usually associated with more urban properties where the removal is complicated by access and space issues and the potential liability of falling limbs. Out in the country where these are much less of a concern I can't imagine you would be looking at the same expense.

Here is a link that might be useful: marketing your lumber

On my residential acre I save money by having the tree cutting company just cut down the tree. Last one wanted the mulch from the small limbs but $500 more for removal of thicker than my arm limbs. So I kept them for the bon fire pit and gave away some trunk pieces to a fella who heats his home with wood.

Often you can get a "day rate" for the work so that if you have 1-2 days worth of work they charge you not by the tree but by the day. I would recommend getting at least 3 quotes.

>>I just read that taking down a tree is easily 1000 dollars.Does that include removing the stump?

I'd put in a add for free lumber...come and cut your own,....on your own risk.

One's the trees are gone then hire a cat to pull stumps.
It shouldn't be more then 2 or 3 thousend $.

"How am I ever going to be able to afford this? I just read that taking down a tree is easily 1000 dollars."

As GardenGal alluded to, there's a big difference between taking down a large oak or maple near a suburban home piece-by-piece, without dropping anything on a fence, house, car, etc...vs cutting down a tree in the forest by taking a chain saw to the base, and letting it fall pretty much anywhere except on you.

I wonder whether cutting trees down, sawing them up & burning them in big piles (with a wide, clear span around the pile; don't want forest fires) is an option for you?

Do stumps bother you, or are you okay with applying some generic Roundup concentrate to the cambian layer under the bark or on suckers that come later, and just letting them rot in place?

Richard.

this is very comforting.

stumps do no bother me too much as long as they rot fast enough that I can plant another tree very close to the stump

I do know of someone who had some very large trees cut down last year. Maybe around a 3' Dia. trunk. He only had 3-4 of them, so it wasn't as bad. They wanted $500 per tree including stump removal.

denninmi has a good point. I was wanting to clear some brush last year. Long story short the brush was about 10' high so I had a brush hog do it. But I watched some of the machines in action on youtube that pretty much just mulched the tree up while it was standing. It wouldn't be cheap, but it would be cheaper than cutting down each tree individually. This way you are paying for just the machine and a little labor. If you have that many trees cut down by hand most of it will be labor which isn't cheap. See the link...

Here is a link that might be useful: Tree mulching

Trees for lumbering (where a company would come in and take down a stand of them) are often densely grown and of a particular caliber and species. Open canopied trees are not valuable because of the knots the lateral branches cause. You can usually get a lumber harvester to look at your stand gratis and they can give you an offer for the lumber on the spot. Your stand doesn't really sound promising and three acres worth on a prospective building site might not interest anybody but it's worth a shot. You aren't out anything.

Offering free wood on a cut your own basis is very risky because it's dangerous, dangerous work on big trees even for the experienced jack. That's why so many companies go out of business..........the workman's comp part of it. If a person comes on your land and gets injured or killed felling a tree, you better have a good lawyer and insurance. Having them saw up or split already felled tress is not quite the same issue. I know a gentleman, a professional jack who was killed during a clearing operation and my own g'son was injured just limbing up a tree when wooding out.

We have acreage and do a lot of tree planting and upkeep, and have worked with a professional tree company for some major stuff and they can be hired out by the day. Still not cheap but not a grand a tree either. I guess you need to look at it from a lot of different perspectives and see what works. Just don't assume there is not liability because your trees aren't in an urban situation.

>>Most of them are large poplars (50feet), Remember, poplars push up gazillions of suckers, especially after cutting them down, treatment with some kind of chemical might be needed. I might be in favor for pulling the roots, since I don't know the chemical trace hazard in the ground for a long long time.

If you don't do anything, your newly planted trees could get lost in no time if you don't cut down newly spouted poplar suckers every year.
I have build a root puller for my tractor after I felled lots of poplars.

Poplar is not bad firewood and I wouldn't hesitate to cut them myself...been logging as a kid.

>>If a person comes on your land and gets injured or killed felling a tree, you better have a good lawyer and insurance.Not if you have him or her sign a liability waiver.

are you surrounded by farms..

you might want to ask the farmer.. how he would handle it ...

you may be thinking suburban tree reclamation.. and its attendant costs..

where as a farmer.. might hook up a john deere.. and yank that sucker right out of there ... in the season out of his crop rotation ... and he might be glad for some spare money ...

you started in a box with one solution .. think outside the box ...

especially if these trees are NOT overhanging something of value...

i had a tree guy.. drop 6 huge pines for 500 total ... the deal was.. he make fall down.. i start chainsaw.. and drag to burn pile.. i speak like caveman with chainsaw ... lol

and yes.. the stumps are still there .. on 5 acres.. i just dont need to grind stumps .. and neither do foresters.. who reclaim clear cuts.. they just plant new trees around such ...

there is no reason.. that someone in the country should have to pay urban rates ... if you look hard enough ...

ken

I really don't think you're going to get a rooted fifty foot tree out with a Deere. We've chained out stumps with one, but they were felled first and even a front end loader hesitated pushing some huge ones. I guess it depends on what you're planning with this lot. If you are going to build on it, and want it cleared you will want the stumps out. That's a lot of stumps. ;-) I don't imagine the trees are all planted now just exactly where you want them, and you probably don't intend to plant new ones around the stumps anyway.

BTW three acres is smaller than many suburban lots. I know I have put in over a hundred trees over the years in addition to a line of windbreak trees along a three acre sector of our ground. It's beautiful now and very park-like but it's still a lot of trees for an area that size. On aerial views, the canopy looks almost solid. Lotsa trees means you will have a fairly sizeable maintenance budget down the road. We think it's worth it but when they get as large as our's are, it's not anything we feel comfortable handling if the limbs are twenty or thirty feet or more in the air.

Call for quotes to land clearing operations and tree firms and every other option you can think of and wish you the best of luck. Prices are all over the board, but I'm afraid the very same tree men who work urban areas are the ones who work rural ones.

If you are don't want them all down at once, you can rent or by an appropriate size chain saw and cut them down. If you have the room, the only worry about where they fall is that it is not on you.

Once down use the chain saw to cut the trunk into handleable size. Cut the branches to 3 to 6 foot links.

I believe a chainsaw of that size will rent for less that $100 per day.

Once every thing is down rent a chipper shredder for about $200 per day to clean up the brush. You should be able to get the job down for less that a $1000, and a couple of cases of Beer. Sell the stumps for firewood. You could rent a power spltter to split the stumps. I don't know what they rent for but assume it is similar to the chipper shredder.

where as a farmer.. might hook up a john deere.. and yank that sucker right out of there ...

==>>> later i realized i didnt mean it literally ...

i meant attach a rope or chain.. and use the tractor to pull in the direction of the fall .. while someone else cut the trunk ...

the lesser the precision needed.. the lesser the cost ...

ken

We're on an acre in CT, and over the past 2 years have probably had 20-25 huge trees taken down. First round was 5 big maples right next to the house, at least 80-90 ft tall and huge trunks. That was $1800 without stump grinding, and with them leaving most of the wood but cutting it into manageable chunks.

Tree guy at the time made the important point that once they're committed to bring all their equipment and guys and be at your house, each additional tree doesn't add much cost. (This was with a bucket truck, very professional operation). He said if they had to come for just one of the trees it would've been $800, but all 5 were only $1800.

We've had other services come since then,some good, some messy, but all give better prices the more you're doing, and there's a huge range in quotes for the same job. Really worth your time to get some tree people out there and get a few quotes...you may be pleasantly surprised!