Awww, Richard! Before you had tyres? Well, way back when, we had to tie our barrels to a tree stump with hempen cords. Sometimes, we had to use rawhide ties, 'coz someone had smoked our twine... But we got the job done. When the wheel n tyre got invented, it was much easier!
Of course, if you had an idiot nephew or cousin, he could usually be persuaded to just hold it for us. Oft times we would run out of cousins - then back to the tree stump! The family breathed a sigh of relief when the tractor came along on it's tyres.