...home constructed block and tackle.
I'm going to start with a long ramble, perhaps or perhaps not of interest to rural homeowners or farmers - those wanting to get right to the meat of the question go directly to the last paragraph.
Three years ago I began a work project of enlarging my yard from perhaps 1/3 acre to approximately two acres. This entailed clearing it of field brush and trees. I hand uprooted the smaller brush with my little hatchet and chainsawed the larger of the trees. I completed the aboveground portion of the project in about a year, and for the past two years have been picking away at the stumps, a little at a time, burning chopping, digging etc. I've been through lots of lawnmower blades due to forgotten subsurface stumps resurfacing at inopportune times beneath my riding mower. I'm down to only three stumps, all of which are in a partially burned state.
I now am beginning my next project, clearing about six more acres for pasture or baled hay. This is former pasture that has been overgrowing for about 25 years, and has been bushhogged twice in the last 10 years. Almost all of the trees on it are scrub, with the exception of a few cedars and a few small oaks. I'm taking all the scrub out, and going to start mowing it on a regular basis. (as an aside to treehuggers, I'm a tree-lover, I won't be murdering the forest primeval, just turning mesquite, locust, sumac etc into pasture, there will be plenty of scrub left over in my neighbors scrub field for the bunnies and armadillos and opposums to hide out in) The largest scrub trees and several very dense patches I'm going to hire out to be bulldozed.
I've decided that I'm sick and tired of stumps and wrecked mower blades. With that in mind I plan on taking all trees that I possibly can out by their roots. The condition of the field right now makes it the best possible time to do it I believe, as the first several feet of soil in the field is essentially mud, and I believe the root systems are currently at their weakest regarding being pulled out.
Now let me backtrack (you were warned in the first paragraph about my rambling), a few weeks ago the little lady got the 2nd car stuck in the ditch of the driveway (I'd warned her and warned her) - we're having the wettest spell in northeast Texas right now that we've had for several years, and although my driveway is good and solid if you go off the edge in wet weather you're stuck, but good. I've wanted a winch for quite some time - I could have gotten one of my neighbors down here that afternoon with a tractor or 4x4 to pull me out for free, but that would have left ruts in my field, or paid fifty bucks for a local wrecker who could have snatched it without leaving the driveway, but that would be fifty bucks down the drain, and so I decided to buy myself a winch, and then I'd be all set the next time something got stuck or needed pulling. I found a good deal on a battery operated winch - A "warn works" winch rated at 1,700 lbs from Northern tool for 99 bucks. I bought it. After I bought it, I kicked myself. For another 70 or 80 bucks I could have bought one that had about a 4,000 lb capacity, but I had thought to myself when purchasing that for pulling a small car out of the ditch, 1,700 lbs would be sufficient (and it was).
It wasn't until I bought the winch that I got to thinking that I could use it to uproot small trees. Now you see where this is going - a 4,000 lb winch would uproot larger trees. I've tested it and it's good for about a two inch tree in dry earth, and hopefully a larger tree in mud.
O.k., here's the question for those of you who skimmed the boring parts
"What do you know about simple mechanical devices that will increase the winch's pulling power?"
I'm on a budget, as usual. My owner's manual suggests a "snatch block", whatever that is. I've seen plenty of +100 year old block and tackle arrangements hanging in old barns, and I wonder if some such could be used for a horizontal pull rather than a vertical lift? Or perhaps a block/tackle device was made that was intended to turn a single mule (my winch) pulling into the power of a team of oxen pulling? I'm looking to buy or build something on the cheap. Advice solicited from the peanut gallery, even if it's something you saw your crazy uncle Hiram do one time.
Now I see the sun coming up. So I'm off for a day of winching, chopping, burning, and if I can find any high spots, mowing. I'll check back in later.