I think that organic farming is the Arts & Crafts movement of our day. And will fail for the same reasons: it is ugly, old fashioned & expensive, its products out of the reach of, & sensibly unwanted by, those without money to burn on expensive fol-de-rols. It will never Feeeed the Wurrrld
Nevertheless I share the nostalgia for this kind of agriculture. My maternal great grandparents had a farm, & I spent a lot of time there until they gave it up when I was 5; none of their surviving 9 children wanted to take it on
Though it seemed large to me I guess it was really small as farms go. There were at least 2 fields - one for hay, the other for cereal. There were also sheep (high up the hill), cows & hens &, at least one year, geese. It seems odd to me now that I cannot remember any pigs, given that they are such useful animals: you can use everything but the whistle & they provide an economical form of garbage disposal. At least while I was in primary school the leavings from our school dinners were scraped into enamel pails & taken away as pig swill
My grandfather was adamant about one thing: no tractors. He maintained that they could not cope with hills as well as could the horses, & I guess he was right. How many farm workers have been killed by toppling tractors? So he had horses. They seemed huge to me too. I can still remember being lifted up as a tiny child to perch on a broad solid back, high in the air above feet as big as soup plates, taking in the lovely warm friendly smell of horse
One of my favourite 'jobs' was to help with the butter-making once a week. After churning, the butter was put into small round wooden bowls & tapped down with a wooden lid. My task was to press the lid down hard enough to imprint the butter with the image carved onto the underside of the lid. My favourite picture was of a butterfly
At the age of three I almost became an instant vegetarian during the course of the family Sunday dinner. That year I had been 'given' an orphan lamb. Naturally I christened him Larry. He lived for a while in a shoe box beside the kitchen range & I helped to feed him from a babys bottle. It is surprising how fiercely such a tiny thing can pull. During the famous dinner my horrible uncle - only 11 himself - asked me if I realised that I was eating Larry
Another favourite job was to take my grandfathers dinner to him when he was working the harvest. He impressed everybody with his appetite for apple pie, a whole one just for him in a rectangular enamel pie dish. An essential part of the ritual was his careful lifting of the pastry crust so that he could spread the contents liberally with English mustard. Such a sweet/sour/hot combination seems commonplace now, but was a thing of wonder to us then
