To cut down, to fell. Used by Chaucer; now obs. in England. N.E.D.
1677. They were by Beverly commanded to goe to work, fall trees and mawl and toat railes.—See Virginia Magazine, ii. 168 (1894).
1817. A.S., in a piece of chopping that he was clearing, fell a tree across a stump.—Mass. Spy, June 11.
1823. I think it time to remove, when I can no longer fall a tree for fuel, so that its top will lie within a few yards of the door of my cabin.—Daniel Boon[e], in E. James, ‘Rocky Mountain Expedition,’ i. 105 (Phila.).
