"katy" wrote
Most often the wives died of puepheral fever (childbed fever) and
the children of measles, mumps, etc. You have a very jaded view of
family farm life.

Geeze, you got so worked up your typo rate increased. We are talking apples and
oranges.

Go back before your grandfather - to the heyday of the "family farm" in the
early and mid 1800s before machinery reduced the need for labor. Yes, most often
wives died in childbirth, died to produce the crop of laborers needed to make a
"family farm" a viable economic unit. The kids who died on the farm were the
lucky ones. Their siblings were forced off the family farm by their nieces and
nephews who took their places doing the chores without pay. They ended up dying
young in big city sweat shops and opium dens over a "pipe dream".

By the time you speak of, machinery had replaced the big family and made family
farms inefficient. Until then the size of a farm without slaves was limited by
the number of kids the farmer had to do his work. One man with a spade can only
tend a garden. One man with draft animals and 15 kids can farm 160 acres or
more (the basis of 'townships') but he'll kill 3 wives to get them. OTOH, with
two tractors, a planter and a combine, plus a mower and bailer, and no kids, I
raised enough corn and alfalfa to feed 800 feeder calves while working a full
time 40hr/week job to boot. Had I worked the farm exclusively, I could have
farmed four times the acreage or more. That's the modern economic farm unit.
The "family farm" cannot compete with it any more than a smith can compete with
a factory.

But that made me a "farmer" in name only - I spent more time maintaining
machinery and feeding cattle than planting and harvesting. And I certainly
wasn't a "family farmer" (My wife & daughter wanted no part of it!). No, I
"share cropped" the cattle part of the operation on 270 acres, buying weaned
calves and feeding them out to slaughter, and leased I several similar farms
from folks like your grandparents to grow grain and fodder for them. I don't say
none exist but I don't know any "family farmers" nowadays except the Amish.

So, while your grandparents may not have had quite as efficient and modern
equipment as I, they didn't need 15 (or 5) kids to make a viable economic unit.
So their (and my) operations were more akin to factory farms than to the family
farms of the 19th century. They (and I) didn't have a family farm, they were
merely a family living on a farm. Many families doing that today own the land
but hire "custom pickers" to plant and harvest their crops. It's easy to be
nostalgic for such an existence. But they are no more "family farmers" than a
factory owner is a blacksmith. If he is, it's a hobby.

Yes they were lucky to have the farm. Many overmortgaged theirs in the
preceeding inflationary boom to buy more land and machinery. Then with deflation
they had a farm worth far less than the mortgage and an income less than the
payment. So the bank forclosed and the farm sat fallow while people starved.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:17:51 -0400, katy
said:

Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.

Have to agree with you on that one, Katy. Vito's version of the facts bears
no relation whatever to what I observed.

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there are no "family farms"
today. So neither of you have seen one any more than I have even though we both
farmed. We're over 100 years too late.

"Scotty" wrote in message
...

"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!

12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.

So, asshole, how many 18" deep furrows i he plowing??

Nice little story, Vito. You're making your life story the basis for
everyone? My grandfather farmed with Percheron teams. On;y tractor
they ever owned was a Gravely hand tractor for the vegetable garden.
And BTW, it wasn't only farm wives and farm children dying back
before the turn of the century, it was everybody. Farming had
nothing to do with it, the lack of medical knowledge, antiseptic
processes, and disease was responsible. And I do know family farmers
in Michigan. They are not a lost breed.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:48:21 -0400, "Vito" said:

Our cancer is overpopulation. Cure it and all our
other problems become manageable.

Hmm. Seems like there was a fella with initials TM saying that about 200
years ago. He wasn't such a good prognosticator.

Not sure who TM was but look what we have lost to overpopulation in that time.
And the curve is nearly vertical now.

Vito wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:17:51 -0400, katy
said:

Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.
Have to agree with you on that one, Katy. Vito's version of the facts bears
no relation whatever to what I observed.

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there are no "family farms"
today. So neither of you have seen one any more than I have even though we both
farmed. We're over 100 years too late.


That's such baloney. In West Michigan, there are still plenty of
family farms, many of them orchards and dairies. I could name names
and give you addresses.
http://www.michiganfarmbureau.com/fa...centennial.xml

Go to the MI Farm Bureau site. They are proponents of strong family
farms over corporate and agri-business afrms as the anchor for
agriculture in the state.

"Vito" wrongly wrote

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there
are no "family farms"
today.


Liar!

"Vito" wrote


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.

So, how many 18" deep furrows i he plowing up my
asshole??


???

In article , Dave
wrote:

On Mon, 8 May 2006 12:47:32 -0400, "Vito" said:

Hmm. Seems like there was a fella with initials TM saying that about 200
years ago. He wasn't such a good prognosticator.

Not sure who TM was but look what we have lost to overpopulation in that
time.

Thomas Malthus. If his predictions had been correct, the entire planet would
have died of starvation long ago.

Yes. The old 'food resourse grows arithmetically, population growth
geometrically (or exponentially, I forget)'.

He's been wrong because technology has enabled us to grow a *lot* more
food, and in 1st World countries, the population is not growing
exponentially. Indeed, it's levelled off at or below replacement rate,
if you ignore immigration. As for the 3rd World countries, really, they
don't count - so far. China's effect is fascinating but predictable,
and was predicted.

Nonetheless, we now *have* to have high tech and a lot of energy to
sustain the population we have. Which is why I reckon we'll go to
nuclear power, because the alternatives are worse.

PDW

"SUZY" wrote in message
ups.com...
Vito, I think Scotty was speaking of the arrangement of the team, not
the amount of rows plowed per pass. A huge team like that would plow
6-8 rows per pass. Your a city slicker like Robert right?

Naw, just too poor to have plowed with a horse. Now an ox .....