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Contents of Chapters from HUSBANDRY:
- PARTING:
Circumstances that drew us toward a more tranquil life.
- AWAY
AT LAST: Why we failed at homesteading three times, and how that
finally led to success.
- GETTING
STARTED: Working towards making a monetary income from the land.
- FARMING
FOR MONEY: Our near-ruin in “money-farming” that led to discovery
of a treasure-trove of long-forgotten secrets of country success.
- LAND
& AUTONOMY: Assessing
land’s ability to supply our every human need.
- BUYING
LAND: How to find and buy excellent land at little or no cost.
- HUSBANDING
LABOR: Getting the most good from the least toil.
- WATER:
Pure water from Indian wells, springs, conventional wells, rainwater,
etc., with tips on plumbing and hydraulic rams.
- PREPARING
LAND: Secrets of low-labor land-clearing, fences, hedges, and stone
walls.
- HENS:
Raising, housing, feeding and breeding hens without a lot of fuss,
plus advice on other kinds of poultry, together with how to recognize
and cure diseases and predator problems.
- GOATS:
Experiences with goats, good and bad.
- COWS:
A complete course on acquiring, feeding, housing, milking and
troubleshooting the “house cow.”
- HOGS:
Choosing, breeding, raising, feeding, and troubleshooting pigs for
maximum production and minimum cost, without resorting to cruel or
unsanitary methods.
- SHEEP:
Starting a home flock, avoiding the “lanoliny-tasting” kinds,
feeding & management, troubleshooting, plus very complete
instructions on hand-shearing.
- RABBITS,
ETC.: A few words on less-common types of stock for the small holding.
- DRAFT
BEASTS: Why we sold the tractors and got horses, oxen vs. horses,
horse & ox breeds, feeding and understanding horses, safely
training horses, how to use harnesses, plowing, breaking a
“runaway,” grooming, voice commands, picketing, telling the age of
horses.
- OXEN:
Training, plus homemade equipment.
- DAIRY:
Making better dairy products (butter, cheese, yogurt & ice cream,
etc.) than you can buy, and why store-bought isn’t nearly as healthy
as home-produced.
- POULTRY:
Turning fowl into food, with the least mess, least fuss and least
trauma for all involved.
- PORK:
Handling the “big butchering job” solo (or with a tiny crew)
quickly, humanely, safely, and without fancy tools.
- CHARCUTERIE:
Preparing gourmet delicacies from pork: bacon, ham, headcheese, fine
lard, fried pork skins, pickled pig’s feet, brine curing and dry
curing—theory and practice, smoking meats, plus complete illustrated
meat cutting chart.
- MUTTON:
Quick and easy sheep butchering without special equipment.
- PASTURE:
Learning the intricacies of the most profitable, least understood
facet of livestock raising, how to identify and encourage the best
species of grazing plants, doubling a field’s growth by simple,
no-cost methods (then cheaply doubling it again).
- MEADOW:
Identify and promote the best hay plants and learn how they differ
from plants for grazing, how to make better hay than you can buy,
avoiding the losses that always plague mechanized operations.
- POTATOES:
Easiest to grow food crop.
- PULSES:
Crops that enrich the soil while filling the pantry: soybeans and
their products, peanuts, peas, fava beans, and common soup beans.
- SMALL
GRAINS: Easily growing and harvesting wheat, barley, oats, rye and
buckwheat; growing bread yeast, and making superior bread in minutes
(for pennies).
- MAIZE:
Using the six major types of corn: growing, seed saving and breeding,
harvest and storage.
- ROOT
CROPS: Carrots, mangels, rutabagas and others, for man and beast, the
poor man’s way to get up to 50 tons of food per acre.
- GARDENING:
The five rules for perfect gardens, how to select varieties, growing
tomatoes, sweet corn, garlic, onions, cucumbers, green beans, peas,
peppers, lettuce, leeks, cabbage, beets, spinach, squash and pumpkin,
melons, plus handy garden charts that cover over 30 other vegetables.
- FRUITS
AND NUTS: Practice and principles of planting, pruning,
layering, grafting, budding, with special hints on pears, cherries,
peaches and apricots, plums, mulberries, persimmons, several nut
trees, berries and grapes.
- HUSBANDING
THE HARVEST: Preserving what you grow, by canning, cellaring, spring
houses, ice houses, dehydrating, salting, curing & larding,
fermentation and pickling.
- SWEETS:
Producing honey, maple sugar, and sorghum molasses.
- DUNG:
Safe, ecological and inoffensive methods of dealing with human and
animal wastes.
- ENERGY:
Using those renewable resources that need only tools and equipment
whose spare parts you can make yourself.
- SMITHING:
Easy, step-by-step ways to fix, sharpen or make replacements of tools
needed for self-sufficiency.
- ROUGH
CONSTRUCTION: Rapid, cheap, sturdy good-looking, construction using
rough and green lumber, also quick-and-easy lumber, shingle, and
clapboard making without power tools.
- VERMIN:
Prevention and removal of insects, rodents, ‘possums, skunks,
weasels, mink, groundhogs, rabbits, raccoons, and predatory canines,
without poisons or dangerous devices.
- ODDS
& ENDS: Making charcoal, clay, lime, concrete, lye, whitewash,
soap, leather, plus forecasting weather by “the signs.”
- EPILOGUE:
Becoming free of the need to buy & sell in order to live well,
ending the threat of crime and violence, cultural opportunities in the
country, better health, and finding contentment.
APPENDIX 1: The “Hungry
Gap”
APPENDIX 2: “Donkeys and
Dogs”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
USEFUL ADDRESSES
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Husbandry Contents