DCHP-1 Online
branding Hist. 
1a n. the clearing away of trees and brush on a tract of land by burning.
See also: burning (def. 1)
- 1898 (1933) With a blazing sun overhead and ashes heated like unto a fiery furnace underneath, the men looked like a lot of chimney-sweeps after a day at branding.
- 1943 Pushing back the forest to make place for homes and farms meant death to thousands of trees; meant mountainous piles of wood too huge to be left around. They called it "branding," this burning of the trees.
- 1953 In early summer, in a new settlement, hundreds of piles of burning brush and logs blazed and smoked all night and all day, and the men working at the "branding" as it was called were blistered and scorched, their clothes thick with soot and ashes.
1b n. See quote.
- 1933 The collecting and burning of the half-burnt wood was sometimes called "the branding."
2 n. the charred wood left after burning.
- 1924 (1933) Scarred logs . . . were yanked into fresh piles, with much proddings of the rumps of oxen, and the brandings were thus prepared for a fresh burning.
- 1898 (1933) With a blazing sun overhead and ashes heated like unto a fiery furnace underneath, the men looked like a lot of chimney-sweeps after a day at branding.