In Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 11, where he describes the man who understands and loves the land he is cultivating, there is a sentence:
The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his point for a stone, dropping his hands to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.
What does the "bold" part of the sentence mean? As a city dweller, I totally lack the cultural background of the early 20th century farming. Does the "point" refer to some tapered part of an agricultural instrument? Does the man just draw his attention to a stone that, if unnoticed, may get in the way of a plough or something?