How Much Land Per-person for Subsistance Farming?

[rzwieg]

Respectfully disagree about 'no pigs without a freezer.' As a kid in Arkansas in the 1940s, we butchered one or two large hogs every fall and the nearest electric line was miles away.

I remember butchering clearly because I was the 'handy lad' who had to do all the following chores preparatory to butchering:
-Cut poles and construct a tripod for raising and lowering the dead hog.
-Position the 70 gallon vat under the tripod.
-Cut and stack a cord or two of hardwood for the vat and other fires.
-Carry 70 gallons of water from the well to fill the vat.
-Help bring the hog from the pen and hold it so a grownup could kill it with a large hammer to the forehead.
-Scoop out the entrails, take them to a nearby table and begin washing and stripping the guts for sausage casing.
-Carry out two plus dozen five and ten gallon ceramic crocks for storing cooked porkchops and other cuts.
-Tend the two or three other fires where the women fried the chops and rendered lard.
-Help pour a couple of inches of molten lard into each crock, then a layer of cooked chops, followed by more lard and so on to the top.

Yep, remember all that well and then, after the initial butchering, your's truly cut hard and fruit wood and stacked it by the smoke house so the old man could smoke hams. Altogether, it was several days of hard work for everyone but we had lots of 'preserved' pork for the winter. The ham smoking, BTW, went on for a month or more so lots of fire tending and wood hauling. But, like I said in another post on this thread, we ate like kings and ALL we bought at the grocery store in town was coffee and salt!

That sounds familiar, CW4. But we had two freezers and my dad worked at a bakery (free bread) and part timed as a mechanic for a PD.

We had a big garden (I think about an acre and a half) and raised rabbits, poultry, pork, beef, and had a house cow fo rmilk cheese and butter. Mom saved seeds from squash, pumpkins, raddish, carrots, parsnip, beans, spinach, and other stuff. We had apples, cherries and wild rasberries, grapes, asparagus, and currants. Fish and game of all kinds too. Anything in season. My dad kept bullheads and snapping turtles in an old cow tank for easy meals.

 

[KiljoyKutlery]

Here,...We raise only 6-8 beef cows per year for slaughter, and calve out 6 of those before doing so. It looks like alot of acreage, until you see how much is pasture 2/3rds, corn silage 1/3rd and forest 1/3rd. Ok, sometimes we run hay in the corn field for a year or so before going back to hay. It's a heck of alot of mechanized equiptment including a self propelled baler, and various tractors to get' er done. Now you may not be able to notice to 20 x 10 ft chicken coop near the long barn, but it's there with 20 laying hens inside. They're good for the year then they make soup. If you have a laying barn then you'll want a side barn for a rooster and breeding hens. Then there's the 40 x 80 vegetable plot that's kept 6 folks in decent chow during the season.

Note, fruit trees take considerable knowledge to have decent crops off of; and farming in general is not 'light work' that you learn from books...unlike what most of the blogs on the 'net want you to believe. I spent the first 20yrs growing up dairy farming and never want to go near another milk cow.

I say stick to smaller critters and have a large enough 'garden' to allow for the losses that will occur due to weather, critters, and rot in the fields. A 10 acres 'spread' could work out fine for a family of 4 if everyone worked it full time and you know how to manage a woodlot. Not too many folks making fun of me now for going to 'Farmer High School' while they were driving their daddy's vet's to the 'party high school'!

This is what I was told by my Grandmother..she grew up on a dairy farm in the old days..she married my Grandfather who worked as a blue collar guy after the war..they had little money, but she wouldnt go back to the dairy farm if you held a gun to her head. Gene

 

[Angus McGunnigl]

I'd want an acre(208x208) per person. Chickens for eggs are a good idea. Rabbits for meat are also.

3 growing seasons a year could be a stretch depending on climate and SUN.

 

[1Tracker]

Your Grandmother was right Gene:thumbup: Dairy farming is not only hard work, but exceedingly dangerous too. At first it seems benign, what with the cows standing around in a herd chewing their cuds looking like a bunch o' saps. It seems to be a no brainer to 'just milk them' That's when all of the rest of the scenerio comes into play....all the mechanized machinery More folks are maimed farming than in any occupation I think other than War. If you think about all the risks one has to take each day on a farm:foot: it SHOULD scare most normal people. My best friend (to this day) was tightening up his hay knives on the machine after resharpening them one day. I'm home doing some wood splitting when the phone rings......Seems he slipped with the wrench and the knives spun up and caught him in the chin and he was at the hospital, "could I go over and milk the herd (125 cows)?" OF COURSE I COULD:thumbup: It was pretty much me or else in a few hours many of the cows would be dealing with mastitis:thumbdn: Had the cut been a few inches lower he'd be dead:foot: Working on a farm often involves doing things alone, under-manned, as the case may be; which at times can be significantly dangerous. Just slipping off the step coming out of the seat on a tractor can put you under the rear wheels.

Chickens, glorious chickens....just make sure before you become a chicken 'farmer' that you are on good terms with all your neighbors; or your surrounded by family lands. Once those damn flies start hatching folks will quickly find out where they're coming from None too pleased about the 'downwind smell' either!

 

[Old CW4]

1Tracker is right on about farming dangers! In my day we farmed with horses and mules and milked by hand. However, those three beasts were just as dangerous in their way as tractors and powered machinery. A close neighbor or ours was killed by a bite in the side of his neck from a mule. He was repairing a trace chain with wire when the mule turned and chomped him in the left side of his neck right where it joins the shoulder. He died from shock and blood loss before they could make it to the clinic in town.

A boyhood friend of mine was crippled for life when we were picking raspberries at a neighbor's farm. We were barefoot, as usual, and he was struck on the top of his right foot by a big rattler that was holed up at the bottom of the vines. He survived but his leg partially withered and he was lamed for life.

I had a team bolt on me while running a hay mower and I remember that big sickle bar bouncing up and down with the big sharp teeth snipping back and forth to this day. I've even dreamed about it. I finally manager to fall off the mower seat to the rear and let the damned team run themselves out at the end of the pasture.

I've seen the modern machines around here in New Mexico and, indeed, fatalities and injuries are all too common.