"katy" wrote in message
...
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.

Glad to hear it ... it's just that I call them hobby farmers. Nothing wrong
with that either.

I can't speak for Michigan but throughout the mid atlantic and the west land is
so valuable that the "farmer" could easily make more income by selling it and
investing the cash. The man I "share cropped" the cattle spread was a good
example. He'd made a bundle in politics during ww2 and bought a farm. He
claimed that the appreciation on the land was more than his half of the profits
on the farming operation, and I have no reason to doubt that. We had 6-800
feeder calves and 120 cows on pasture plus 80-120 steers in a feed lot at any
given time. I'd get there by 5am and feed hay, grain and silage then go to my
job. He'd get up and around about 9am and fiddle around in his garden. When I
got back about 6pm he'd come give me advise while I fed again then ground grain
for next morning, getting to bed around 11. I would have been the life of Riley
if I hadn't had to work too but I made more money on my day job. The old
farmer, and the folks I leased farms from for a few dollars/yr (gave them a big
tax break) all refinanced annually and live on the lands' appreciation. We all
lived on farms but were we farmers?? Now, had I owned enough land to live well
off the appreciation (Several $million worth) , and farmed it as well I could
have done OK.

"katy" wrote
That's such baloney. In West Michigan, .....

Good! But west Michigan (all Michigan?) is economically depressed. Elsewhere,
the land has become so valuable it makes more economic sense to sell out and
live on the $$$ from investing the sale price - unless you have kept refinancing
the mortgage every year to get cash to live on. I think we are argueing
semantics. To me "family farm" means about a quarter section - the amount of
land a family can farm independently without modern "industrial" machinery. But
with modern machinery one man (never mind the "family") can easily farm a setion
or more. In fact, he must to make his investment in those machines pay off.

I'm glad (though dubious) that "family farms" are surviving up there. To the
casual observer, they are here too. There's mom and pop and the kids living on
200 acres. They may have an orchard and garden where they grow their own fruit
and veggies for little more than the "industial" ones in the supermarket. The
daughter has a hobby horse and a few, perhaps one in ten, raise a steer and/or
hog every year. Each spring and fall dad hires a "custom picker" to come with
his industrial machines to plant then harvest a crop. Is that a "family farm"
to you?? If so, no wonder you are so nostalgic about it.

"Dave" wrote
Vito has a very peculiar definition of family farm. To qualify, his family
farm must not use machinery.

That's not true Dave. I suppose if one man owned 1000+ acres, the amount needed
to justify having modern planters and harvesters, and lived on and farmed it
himself, then I guess you could call it a "family farm".. I just don't know of
any hereabouts. Now the man who had the 160 acres next to my cattle operation
called it a family farm. After all his family lived on it and I "farmed" it (cut
alphalfa) for him so it must be a family farm. Of course the only reason he
could afford to do that was beause he owned a big construction company that
built tract houses. But he was a fermer, not a conrtactor - right?

"Scotty" wrote in message
...

"Vito" wrongly wrote

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


Liar!


Show me yours.

Vito wrote:

"Dave" wrote
Vito has a very peculiar definition of family farm. To qualify, his family
farm must not use machinery.

That's not true Dave. I suppose if one man owned 1000+ acres, the amount needed
to justify having modern planters and harvesters, and lived on and farmed it
himself, then I guess you could call it a "family farm".. I just don't know of
any hereabouts. Now the man who had the 160 acres next to my cattle operation
called it a family farm. After all his family lived on it and I "farmed" it (cut
alphalfa) for him so it must be a family farm. Of course the only reason he
could afford to do that was beause he owned a big construction company that
built tract houses. But he was a fermer, not a conrtactor - right?

My wife grew up on a working family farm, where we now live. 160 acres,
mostly dairy. In a lot of ways it was somewhat like what Vito describes,
my wife's mother bore 12 children, 11 survived. It was pretty much
subsistence at the end (1980 or so). They had one crappy old
Massey-Harris tractor, no hydraulics or PTO, just a draw bar. It's still
a farm, for tax purposes, we sell the hay to another farmer, that's
enough for the Gov'mint to give us the tax break. The other farmer
probably farms about 3000-5000 acres, has four tractors, a couple of
rakes, cutters, balers, etc., he runs a thousand or so beef cattle and a
150 or so Holsteins for his dairy side. Even he doesn't own a combine,
he rents one at harvest. Despite all his machinery and hired help he is
not making a great living, plus it's fricken hard work.

The upshot of all this, it'd be a bitch to make a living on 160 acres.

Cheers
Marty

Marty,

USA minium wage is hardly SLAVE WAGES. We have Millions of illegals
jumping our borders to get those wages. It isn't forced labor by any
means.

http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomPage

"Mys Terry" wrote.

So, for you, farming was a hobby. Got it!

Yes, that's my point. None of us were "family farmers" even thought we had
families and lived on farms.