why do farm fields often have one lone full grown tree in the middle of them?

Question

i often drive in a rural setting, and i've always wondered why farmers sometimes have large, massive trees standing alone in the middle of their planted field. its seems like it would be a trouble to farm around them, but they look nice though.

Answer 1

Long before farm machinery had cabs on them -farmers had only ONE way to get out of the sun to take a break after long hours of plowing or harvesting their fields. Solitary trees ALSO made good landmarks, shelters (from sudden showers), and private "getaways"- if a pretty girl was involved! :)

Answer 2

Lone Tree Farm

Answer 3

I agree with Joseph that trees were left originally for shade. For cattle and other animals, we still leave a few trees for shade. However, for food crops, those days of needing shade for plowing are long gone. Most farmers use air conditioned tractors. Yes, it is very costly to leave a tree in a field. Therefore, when clearing land, most of the small stuff is cleared, but the substantial tree is left because farmers really do care about the environment and try not to cut down all the trees. We leave as many as we can along the edges, and sometimes whole fields are left uncleared. However, still, we are in business and as you said, it is trouble to farm around them. Sometimes we have left a small area around a substantial tree uncleared, maybe a couple of smaller trees, but over the years we get closer and closer and there is only one tree remaining, the bigger one. If you are talking

Answer 4

Someone once told me it goes back to the days when the farmers plowed their fields with horse, mule, or oxen. The tree was the half-way spot where they would rest under some shade after being out in the hot sun, and have lunch before finishing the field.

Don't know if he was pulling my leg, but he was an old farm boy.

Answer 5

It's a combination of several of the above. The block and tackle were used to pull up stumps when clearing a field and it was the oldest and strongest tree that was left standing (strong enough to pull up the second strongest stump). This tree could have been removed if desired but was often left as shade for grazing animals when crops were not planted.

Answer 6

Yes, they are difficult to farm around. But they are beautiful, aren't they? Farmers leave them because of the beauty. And I bet they've stopped and had lunch or a family evening meal in the shade of that tree more than once.

Answer 7

Frequently what you see in the lone tree or two are the left overs of a wind break and may also have been from old boundary markers from a metes and bounds system of land marking. As with the above reasons there are a lot of reasons for the lone tree.

Answer 8

Large old trees are habitat trees, they encourage birds to nest. The birds eat large numbers of insects. Most farmers are pretty soft when it comes to nature and appreciate the wildlife associated with the old habitat trees. The large old trees don't actually use a lot of water compared with younger trees.

Answer 9

We had a farm beween the levee and the mississippi river --one tree was in the center of the fielld --It was a Pecan tree.

Answer 10

most farmers face problems with erosion. From the road fields tend to look flat but most are slightly hilly.