A couple years ago I talked about setting up an A-frame thing to help pull trees in this thread.
I did make it (I had the A-frame from a different project, added feet and grab hooks); it's very heavy and cumbersome, but definitely effective.
It doesn't really work with the tractor, because I don't have a winch on the tractor, and I don't have enough traction... but I did buy a winch for my truck, which I can then anchor and winch the tree over.
Using the winch, especially with a remote, is key here because getting the A-frame set up and connected it's kind of unwieldy and with the remote winch I'm able to hold the A-frame up in position while getting the pull line ready to hold it up. Obviously I get out of the way for the actual pull.
Originally I was going to use a chain to pull with my tractor, so the A-frame has a horizontal grab hook at the top. I used a ~16' length of 3/8 chain I have connected there; there's a big slip hook that the winch hook is attached to.
The A-frame has a vertical grab hook at the top as well; that's connected to another chain which goes to the base of the tree; the chain there is wrapped around the trunk three times with a slip hook that's grabbed by the chain going up - with that the chain just gets tighter around the trunk and it didn't slip up the trunk at all despite this tree not having any protuberances for it to catch or tighten on.
The tree being pulled here was really well anchored in some deep rock. There were rocks embedded in the roots that did come out but a couple really big roots got busted off below ground. The tree removal left about a 25-gallon ready-made planter that I dropped a Meyer Lemon tree into; it's at the top of the garden space up there and the lemon won't grow to the point that it'll shade the garden like the oak was going to shortly.
The winch didn't really care about the tree with this setup. I had it stop and go not because of strain but just out of general caution.
And yes I should've probably untwisted the anchor strap first (the tension in it was from me driving the truck forward to tension it; the truck didn't budge during the pull.)