Everyone is familiar with the old parable – What comes first – the chicken or the egg? Well, when we moved to our current farm in 1981, the parable was – What will come first – the work horse or the family cow? For years we had been reading the works of Wendell Berry, subscribing to the Small Farmer’s Journal, and planning how we would incorporate all these thoughts when we had a larger farm. We had riding horses at the time and were trying to convert them into practical work horses with mixed success. But having a dairy cow and being able to produce milk and butter also captivated our interest.

A friend had recently purchased 11 acres of ground and wanted to know if I thought that was enough ground to set up a viable farm to support his family. We have a fairly large farm of 24 acres in our area, probably considered nothing more than a garden to large-scale farmers. Yet from this farm we have been able to support our family entirely from our vegetable and fruit production. It was from this background that my friend asked for my input to assess his chances of becoming a farmer. To answer his question I sat down and wrote a letter outlining some points that I considered important for him to succeed in his quest. Following is that letter that I mailed off to him:

Growing up on a vegetable farm in Central New Jersey, strawberries were the first cash crop of the season on our farm. Yet as Ida said, the season really started when a new field was put out the previous spring, usually in April. But unlike Ida, our new plants were not put in by hand but rather by the old Allis Chalmers “B” pulling the New Idea Transplanter. Two young’uns, one seemingly always me, were on the planter alternately putting plants in.