permaculture

[Jack Rowe <jackrowe@compuserve.com>]

Good point about the discussion, Mike,

And a good question about the huge tractor... I'm sorry for inadvertently
diverting attention away from your thought-provoking query. Geez.

Your question was a good one, and the idea interesting, and something to
try... have you read J. Russell Smith's "Tree Crops -- A Permanent
Agriculture"? Very good, written by an old-timer (first in '29, re-edited
in '55), definitive concerning old ways of feeding livestock with
integrated production systems involving forage and trees... a practice
which was taken for granted just 100 years ago, as the pictures of
treed-and-swaled livestock pastures from the turn of the century illustrate
well in Smith's book. For instance, 1 cwt hogs on pasture under mulberry
trees gained another cwt during the dropping of the mulberries. Ditto
persimmon, and acorns are even more dramatic -- pigs go "nuts" over them
(sorry). Mature oak trees planted so as not to interfere with grass/forb
production still drop enough acorns to equal half a good corn crop (in
calories), with near-zero effort and maintenance. I've watched "free-range"
pigs swell up during acorn season -- it's amazing. To a livestock raiser I
think Smith's book would be invaluable (can still be had from Island Press,
Covelo, CA). Excellent production tables for nut trees, again usefully
measured in calories.

Past farmers might, instead of shredding and mulching crop residues, have
fed hogs or cattle on them, reducing them to meat and manure, then planted
a rye-oats-etc catch-crop to capture the N - P - K for next season. It's
worth remembering that, though these days we feed hogs, chickens and
catfish store-bought feeds, they were originally useful because of their
ability to produce useful human foods from daily waste products, bugs, and
other forages not useful to humans.

Only thing that's come to mind re: the big tractors is the idea of the HRM
people using electric fence (for portability and low cost).