Farming for self-sufficiency
(Page 5 of 18)
January/February 1974
By the Mother Earth News editors
John Seymour is no less practiced and knowledgeable on field crops—wheat, rye, maize (corn to us), and especially barley. He's also tops on garden crops—greens, beans, peas, cole (tomatoes, etc.), brassica (the cabbage family), as well as roots, turnips, beets, mangolds, carrots, potatoes. He's just as prolific and informative when he discusses fruits and nuts—and the varieties, growth, storage and preservation of one and all. Being an islander, he of course is at home with all kinds of food from the water—fresh and salt.
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Is this, then, the perfect book for the self-sufficient on-to-the-lander? Well, almost. Some readers may have a bit of difficulty with some terms common to British speech, like "lurcher" (a dog) "sprat" (a fish), "fluke" (an insect that infests animal livers), "potting" (ceramics), mead (a fermented-honey wine), rape (a turnip-like plant), etc. But their meaning is quickly explained or clear from the context. Such words do not interrupt the ebb of good-humored information and flow of easy philosophical probing. Farming for Self-Sufficiency is a book to read for the fun of it—as all honest, human experience should be, especially when It conveys interaction with Mother Nature and the brand of Common Sense that the Seymours have developed. Farming for Self-Sufficiency is also a book to prop up on the table and refer to while you're dressing a fowl, fermenting wine, or planting a garden. Just think what it will look like after you've butchered a beef or two! Spattered and dog-eared. Better buy two—one for the library shelf and one for the workbench!
Where can problems of living better be dealt with than on a self-sustaining homestead? After many years of living on one, and many more of thinking about the problems in the world, I can't escape the conclusion that if a determining majority of people were to live the Seymour life-style, most of our manmade problems would be reduced to manageable proportions. There are two obvious obstacles to such a majority living that way in the world as we know it today: first, a lot of people don't want to live that way. In spite of the "revival" of interest in the direction of normal, creative living on the land, many are afraid or simply don't prefer it. The Seymours' account will help them change their minds and gain confidence to follow in that path, Second, the price and cost of land is a hurdle that many who do want a new way of life cannot readily surmount. The Seymours are aware of this and encounter it head-on on their first page:
There is one man in each village, though, or very often not in the village but of the village, who does absolutely no good at all, and who is a terrible burden on his fellow villagers. That is the ... land-owner. He probably consumes more of the wealth of the village than all of the other villagers put together, and in return for this he does absolutely nothing at all. Remove the [absentee land-owner] and at one stroke you more than double the wealth and well-being of every other villager.
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