puhekieltä A remote, ruralarea; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks. Possibly derived from 1800s (etyl)stick = “tree”, “forest”, from English “stick”.
Most of the farming at present is done in the "sticks," that is, in the large, dead, and often blackened trunks of trees standing in most of the cultivated fields around. There are but few new towns in the Delta where the "sticks" are not to be seen, and much damage is sometimes done when these old "deadenings," as they are called, are set on fire.