As a kid I (over 65 years ago) remember living on a small farm of around 300 acreas. We raised sheep and cattle for butcher meat along with a yearly wool clip. I loved shearing time, the smell of the sheep and the wool as it was removed and pressed into bales for shipment.
The home was surrounded with established fruit trees including figs, apricots, plumbs, nectarines, and one huge walnut tree overshadowing the house.
We grew cash crops of peas and beans to send to market, sometimes potatoes, but I can remember my dad saying often times instead of receiving a check for the shipment of produce he was given a bill for the transport because there was an over supply of that particular vegetable in the marketplace and it would only cost more money to bring it back, so it was a loss. Growing food for market can be very disappointing and difficult to deal at times with many factors coming into play such as rainfall, drought, cold, soil types, cost of fertilizer, supply and demand. But you don't give, next year wil be better.
So not only were we selfsufficient in fruit and veg, we also killed our own meat which mainly consisted of lamb.
