for taking down trees the best an easiest way i found is with a BIG backhoe , not some little farm hoe. i have a john deere 500C , weighs about 18,000 lbs. i rented a D4 dozer with an angle blade , the earth looked like a war zone after taking out 10 trees in about an hour. i'm talking trees 6" to 20" easy and 50' to 70'. probaly 40 years of growth and very thick , mostly maples. i cleared about 8 acres of timber an sold them. back to my baby. you dig one side of the tree up , put the hoe on that side , lock her in , take the teeth of the bucket and dig in up high , then push it over. with the teeth dug in you can push the tree any way you what when it starts to fall. never use botton of bucket , it will just roll off. you have control with the teeth in it. move the hoe to be on side of stump , shave the dirt off the stump , you get a lot off from the side. pack the dirt that you shaved off with the bottom off the bucket , you can't even tell there was a tree there. i cut the tree in two pcs. , dragged it with the tractor to one spot out back to cut up for fire wood and burn the small limbs. the base of the tree i cut too about 28' to sell. use the tractor or the hoe depending how big the stump was , pile them up , let them set couple years. take the hoe and smack them around some to get rest of dirt off. repile them , pour some old use oil on them , wait couple days then light them , gone. if you leave about 3' of tree on the stump , you can put that in the bucket , curl it to pick up the stumps. i can drop ten or so trees in half hour , shave them and never even looked like there was a tree there. after couple rains , take hoe dump little dirt in each hole , then grade with grade box. worked great for me.
