Monday, May 16, 2011

Agrarian Nation and A Farm for the Future

Discovered a new blog - Agrarian Nation. Full of folksy quotes from historical sources on agriculture from the Northeastern US. A 1881 Canadian Farmers Creed:

“We believe in small farms and thorough cultivation; we believe that the soil lives to eat, as well as the owner, and ought, therefore, to be well manured; we believe in going to the bottom of things, and therefore deep ploughing, and enough of it, all the better if it be a subsoil plough; we believe in large crops which leave the land better than they found it, making both the farm and the farmer rich at once; we believe that every farm should own a good farmer; we believe that the best fertilizer of any soil is a spirit of industry, enterprise, and intelligence; without these, lime, gypsum and guano would be of little use; we believe in good fences, good farmhouses, good orchards, and good children enough to gather the fruit; we believe in a clean kitchen, a neat wife in it, a clean cupboard, a clean dairy, and a clean conscience; we believe that to ask a man’s advice is not stooping but of much benefit; we believe that to keep a place for everything, and everything in its place, saves many a step, and is pretty sure to lead to good tools and to keeping them in order; we believe that kindness to stock, like good shelter, is saving of fodder; we believe that it is a good thing to keep an eye on experiments, and note all, good and bad; we believe that it is a good rule to sell grain when it is ready; we believe in producing the best butter and cheese, and marketing it when it is ready.”
And also - check out the video feature. A BBC production of A Farm for the Future. It´s in 4 parts, total run time about an hour. Very interesting, if brief, overview of the challenges peak oil will present to ¨modern¨ agriculture. And the Devon landscape is just beautiful.



Now I want a forest garden, and a walled garden, and an herb garden, and a medieval garden. . .

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