chris_girard
Treehouser
Here's an article from one of my rigging jobs from a few summers ago, that deals with lifting and swinging trees.
Some interesting tips on utilizing the wood fibers in the tree to your advantage.
Some interesting tips on utilizing the wood fibers in the tree to your advantage.

Bend-and-Swing Rigging
OK, here’s what we had to do: Remove two bent birch trees (leaders) that were overhanging a beach. We couldn’t just drop them into the lake, because we had no way to fish them out of the water. They would be partially submerged and ridiculously heavy underwater, and they were already full-length...
tcimag.tcia.org