permaculture

["jamie" <jamie@tiscali.fr>]

Thanks Rick, the Yeoman books immediately sprung into my mind too,
especially as I remember John (Schinnerer) suggesting the keyline techniques
to Frank some months ago. As a relatively cheap and relatively easy and thus
practical way of making the most of available rainfall his books should be
on the bookshelf (or computer considering the availability of The Keyline
Plan and The Challenge of Landscape on Steve Solomon's
www.soilandhealth.org - and his The City Forest: The Keyline Plan for the
Human Environment Revolution might be appropriate for the current Agrarian
Suburb thread) of anyone contemplating large scale farming.

Gene Logsdon and Biodynamics I know of (a little anyway), unfortunately I
don't know who HRM are.

Jamie
Souscayrous


----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 8:36 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Re: large ScalePC.


>
> >> Just as a footnote to the discussion of large farm Pc, what are the
best
> >> books anyone would recommend on the subject?
>
> P. A. Yeoman's books, the books & courses from the HRM folks, would top my
> list. Hell, there's all sort of personnal development stuff in their
> reference lists- talk about zone zero! There's fun insights to be had with
> Gene Logsdon's "The Contrary Farmer" even if he's talking alot about being
a
> small fish among the big. And there's good stuff to find in biodynamics; I
> found Steiner talking about the correct ratio of woodland to field and
> pasture onetime...
> I haven't kept up on it, but touring the Worsfeld family farm on N. Island
> Aotearoa (NZ) was a pretty good look at a big dairy farm permutating under
> the guidance of Pc converts.
> It's not that large means you can't do it; it's about imagination, and the
> skill to carry the vision through. What seems to stop many large farmers
> from changing is that they are running so hard to keep up they can't slow
> down to change direction at all. I have been a part of large projects that
> were attempted by non-farmers, and they couldn't do it because they didn't
> have the skills (including physical fitness) to do it. There might not be
a
> way of making a living that demands more, and more varied, skills than
> farming does. I think Sam Bingham's "The Last Ranch" is a fine book about
> people trying to make a go of large scale; it's HRM, but plenty Pc, and a
> good look at the wild reality of farming these days.
> I know; I'm selling my 20 acres this week, which took me 20 years to get.
> -Rick
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