Part Three

Raising Your Own Vegetables, Fruit, And Livestock

The best fertilizer for a piece of land is the footprints of its owner.

—Lyndon B. Johnson

An 18th-century almanac cautions that “overplanted fields make a rich father but a poor son.” This advice and its corollary—that good farmers are partners of the land, not exploiters—is as current now as when it was first written. Care, consideration, a little knowledge, and a lot of common sense: these are the ingredients that will ensure rich harvests year after year, whether your farm is a window ledge in the city, a backyard in the suburbs, or wide acreage in the country. Raising Your Own Vegetables, Fruit, and Livestock shows how to keep your land healthy while reaping bumper crops each year. It explains how to grow fruits and vegetables without resorting to expensive synthetic fertilizers or dangerous chemical pesticides. The old-time kitchen garden is treated at length, but other aspects of small-scale agriculture—some traditional, some quite modern—are also covered. Among these subjects are fish farming, keeping bees, growing grain, raising dairy animals, keeping chickens and rabbits, and using horses as draft animals.