There’s a rhythmic, mechanical hypnosis to this track. Over a heavy, alternating foot-stomp and the high-pitched whir-snap of a spring-pole, Boone “Dusty” Maddox gives us “The Treadle and the Tree.” This is a tribute to the trip-pole lathe—a piece of pre-industrial technology that turns the kinetic energy of a sapling into the “heart of the machine.”
Making Something Out of Nothing
In Sector 8, you don’t need a power grid to manufacture. You just need a “springy branch” and a foot on the pedal. Boone describes the setup with his usual rugged clarity: a cord tied between a high sapling and a low treadle, wrapped twice around a piece of oak. As the pole springs up and the foot pushes down, the wood spins, and the shavings “fly thick as smoke.”
It’s the ultimate “Maddox machine”—no steam, no wires, just muscle, steel, and a hand that knows how to listen to the wood in the “mountain hush.”
Square to Round
The song is a celebration of transformation. Taking the “square wood” of the raw wilderness and turning it into something “good and true”—a handle for a hoe, a leg for a chair, or a shaft for a tool. Boone’s gravelly voice reminds us that the best machines aren’t made of chrome; they’re made of what grows on the land and the “spirit in the steel.”
By the time the final whir of the lathe settles into silence, you’ll be looking at every sapling on the hillside a little differently.
THE TREADLE AND THE TREE
by: Boone “Dusty” Maddox
Found a sapling
Up on Cedar Hill
Tied a cord
To the window sill
One end high
One end low
Pushing down
To make the timber go
Spin it ’round
Whittle it clean
The muscle is the heart
Of the machine
A foot on the pedal
And a hand on the steel
Making something
Out of nothing that is real
Wrap that rope
Twice around the oak
Watch the shavings
Fly thick as the smoke
The pole springs up
The foot pushes down
Turning square wood
Into something that is round
Steady now
Don’t you rush
Listen to the wood
In the mountain hush
Shape it true
Shape it fair
Now I got a handle
For the hammer and the hoe
I built it just to watch
The seasons go
No steam power
No wire in the wall
Just a springy branch
To answer to the call
Good and round
Good and true