Subject: Re: OZ view on small farms (fwd)

From: [email-masked] (Victor Guest)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 07:58:12 WST

>
>Regards Jim Mckie (look at posting on landcare in this news group at later 
>date)
>
>Im interested in conversing with small farmers all over the world, send 
>us message...
> 
>[email-masked] 
>
>An University address but i not an Academic. I just use their link.
>
>------- end of forwarded message -------
>
>>I am doing reasearch on hedgerows as productive spaces on farms.
>>My thought are that farmers would be more willing to keep and
>>maintain them for wildlife corridors and wind and soil erosion
>>control if they were also producing lumber, nuts, fruits and other
>>perennial crops. Anyone have experience using black walnut,
>>hickory, chestnuts, hybrid willow "Austrees"
>>and shrubs such as blueberry, lamarkii or others for thier
>>commercial value as well as a hedgerow? I am primarily studying
>>land that is used for potato production......

Vic,

I can't help thinking that we are guilty of losing the wisdom of the
centuries. Hedging and Ditching was something the old boys used to do after
harvest. It was an art as well as a science, and typically, we started
ripping up the hedges and the practioners died. Why do we reject the past?
Is there something wrong with it?
I went back to the part of Englnad I spent years in some years ago only to
find that all the heges along "our" lane had gone, despite the fact that
the Duke of Wellington owns the land and tries to control in ways which
benefit wildlife etc. What a crime.
I suppose the Canadian should seek info in the folklore books from the UK,
becasue I don't see too many farms in WA doing H & D.

"A house is a machine for living in...." Le Corbusier. Oh really?
(Dr) Bill Parker  : [email-masked] (+ 619) 328 3804
Box 175 North Perth Western Australia 6006
------------------------------------------------------------------
I have posted this comment from my friend (Dr)Bill Parker as it is relevant
to the small farm issue and the increase in production that is being 
observed in one of my postings about Tagasate and Acacia hedges at Dowerin.

Regards,
          Vic
--
Victor Guest   V.G.Guest                      Perth, Western Australia
[email-masked]                         3 McKee Plce Kingsley. 6026
                ----: Sustainable Agriculture :----   Tel. (09) 3092108
--: The Land Management Society & The Permaculture Association:----