"And in 1850 cutting down trees in order use the land for farming would be difficult- a tree stump is generally a rather stubborn creature. It was done to some extent, but it wasn't wide spread."

And how else is land prepared for farming?

You find areas that don't have a lot trees to chop down. And there is a big difference between clearing brush for farm use and chopping down a forest of trees for farm use.
I'm obviously not saying one never chops down trees if you are farming, you have lots of uses for timber- building houses, firewood, etc. One would also chop down trees to give a clearing more sunlight for crops.
You can also classify logging as farming and there was plenty of demand for lumber from the towns and cities.
But also growing trees is sometimes involved with farming- obviously various kinds of orchards, maple trees, a shade trees, etc. Of course there is also a fair amount of trees which are grown in cities.

"Except for grassland praries like in the Ukraine and North America, forested land is brought under the plow with the axe, even if the axe is a flint one."

If you attempted to clear a forest to make land area in order to plow, using an axe whether flint or not, you would starve to death. I take it you have never had to remove a stump of one decent size tree?

"The increase in agricultural land use in the mid-19th century was not due to improved tree cutting technology, but to improved agricultural efficiencies and social changes brought about by industrialization."

It's one thing to cut down a tree, and it's quite another to remove the stump and roots. We aren't talking about "improved tree cutting technology". Though big bulldozers are good for removing stumps- dynamite on a very rare occasion might have been be used.

"So to review: There is 9% more ice this year than last year, a huge increase, and it is STILL the 2nd worst year on record! At its most charitable to your agenda, this might be interpreted as POSSIBLY a statistical fluke of several very bad years clustered together, after all, those things do happen. Or perhaps it's a very slight slowing down of an otherwise significant trend, or even MAYBE part of a long term cyclic process."

Most glaciers on earth have been retreating since 1850. Globally we are about 1 C warmer [roughly] since the period known as the Little Ice Age. Before the Little Ice Age it was about 1 C warmer [roughly]. Regional areas such as the US or Arctic or Europe can have wider swing in yearly average temperature. Smaller regions such Oregon or Florida can have even bigger changes in temperatures.
I have no idea whether there will be more or less arctic sea ice in the year 2009.
But my point was that back in 2007 the media was reporting that it was known what the future of arctic sea ice would be. They weren't predicting that 2008 would be about the same as 2007, but rather it HAD to melt more [though it seen as unlikely ALL polar ice would melt within a few years [but it was considered possible enough to cite someone "credible" who made this claim].

So as I said last year, it possible there will be less polar sea ice next year compared to this year but there is no way to know if this is likely or not.

Now I do know humans have created more CO2 this year than last year or the years before. And I know human emission will be more next year than compared to this year. And I know that the yearly CO2 emission today is at least 100 times more than compared to 1850.