(This Thanksgiving’s dinner walking by Natasha’s kitchen window. Photo Natasha).
“I am the first one to admit I am no farmer,” I said, taking a sip of happy Hour White. “I don’t even have a tractor.”
Boats looked pensive. “You have not even defined your requirements,” he said. “Do you really need a tractor? What about a commercial riding mower with non-mowing attachments?”
“That is what Frank the lawn guy uses. I was thinking I needed a front end loader and a scraper to keep the gravel on the driveway and the work area around the barn. The rain we had this spring caused gullies to open up and I have to talk to Don-the-Builder about remediation.”
“Well, your choice of motorized vehicles is a key first item, but you can’t go into it thinking that you buy the equipment first. There are other models you have to consider. You have a small place, right?”
My back stiffened. That question was reasonable enough but you never ask a man how much acreage he has, or how many horses or cattle. “It is a gentleman’s farm,” I said. “But not a hobby. Well, make that it could be more than a hobby. I am not doing that at the moment but I have hope.”
“You talk about the Russians next door. How much land do they have?”
I furrowed my forehead, thinking. “The total property would run over 30 acres. Not that much, but they have plenty of room to spread out. I don’t know what the original total acres were. I think my place was part of that spread when it was a working farm.”
“Well,” he said, firmly. “For more than ten acres a real farm tractor might be the ticket. Less than that, it might be over kill and too big to get you into some spaces. Suppose you decide to plant a small orchard on an acre or two. You’ll need something to mow in and around the orchard. Of course you don’t have to grow grass under the shade of an orchard, it can be a good place for a nursery cash crop of shade-tolerant flowers. Impatiens maybe- they make an excellent houseplant or summer bedding plant.”
“It is also known as “Busy Lizzie, right? I never trusted a plant that was short on patiens or busy. Stuff grows fast enough down there.”
“I am used to the Cajun growing season, but I take your point.”
“I think I will concentrate on the large animal end of things- that is what my property is optimized for. Ponies and equestrian stuff.”
“So I ought to be talking to the Russians?”
“Da,” I said, signaling Tex the Bartender for reinforcements to the tulip glass in front of me.
“Small scale agriculture and decorative plant operations in raised beds and green houses usually generate some mowing chores that don’t lend them selves to full scale farm tractors, but can be handled by riding mowers. Then of course a few sheep would pretty well keep the grass all over the place in check but it would certainly not have the mowed, manicured look of the mechanical mower.”
“that sounds green and sustainable,” I said carefully, “but I don’t want to be considered a sod-buster and have the local ranchers try to run me off the land.”
Boats smiled. “Right on. You might also find the sheep to be more maintenance than the mower. It would be hard to sell the small amount of wool that even thirty acres would support, and the shearing would be a pain in the butt.”
“I saw some of that in Australia, and the round-up and shearing are pretty much beyond me now.”
“I understand, you old fart. But don’t forget about leased turn key agricultural and nursery operations. Everything from catfish farming to orchid raising offers opportunities to people with some acreage to lease out to skilled producers who can use your pond, green house or bed space.”
“Well, we don’t have a pond, though there is a 40-acre parcel up the road that does and it is for sale.”
“Now you are talking. Some of these arrangements are share-cropping arrangements with the land owner and producer sharing the risks of production.”
“From each according to his means and to each according to their needs?”
Boats gave me an enigmatic smile. “It depends on how you approach collectivism. That is what a Co-op does and there are no Commies in the equation. It is about free citizens banding together to share fiscally intensive capital equipment that they individually could not afford.”
(Kulaks in the 1920s before their liquidation. Photo Novesti)
“I hate Commies,” I said grimly. “So do the Russians. I am not sure I could even bring up the issue with Natasha without reminding her of what Stalin did to the Kulaks.”
“My uncle made a fortune in cattle putting five kids through LSU in style- the kids got cars and spending cash without their having to have a part time job or scholarship. My uncle gave each a herd of Black Angus that started with a pair of cattle the day they were born. He only owned 80 acres or so outright. His herds were spread all over St. Tammany parish on “gentlemen’s properties” people who had big homes.”
“That ain’t us. My house is tiny. Natasha and Mattski have more room, but it is a 1910-era place, and kinda quirky.”
“My Uncle’s sharecropping allowed him to expand his herds without additional property taxes or acquisition costs in a region where acreage prices being driven up fast by semi-exurban residential development.”
“That would be us,” I said, wondering if another white wine would render me unsafe behind the wheel of the Panzer.
“There was a legal angle, too. Uncle’s activities on these other peoples properties made their holding “agricultural” and kept property tax assessments in line, and made the land owners as passive “farmers” for many federal tax purposes.”
“You can trust the freaking tax code to be bizarre” I said. “Agriculture has been scamming that for generations.”
Boats smiled and rubbed his jaw. “My uncle had more money than Midas and hardly ever had to pay income taxes. Really, give these ideas some thought. There are people in the rural and exurban areas near New Orleans making fortunes off of 10 to 100 acres of land, but it ain’t by old fashioned “hard scrabble” family farming. This economic activity is not unique to our virtually year-round Louisiana growing season. I’ve seen the same type of operations in some of the higher elevations in California with growing seasons comparable to Virginia.”
“I don’t think I ever thought I would be part of a collective farm, or be a share-cropper,” I said, marveling at a new position in life, and how it might work.
“There are opportunities in nearly every climate zone, bust especially in the milder ones, Virginia is just that.”
“It would be nice to make the place productive,” I said, a little dubiously. After all, I don’t want to become a latter-day Kulak for a latter-day Administration.
Boats smiled and waved for a beer. “Just don’t just sit on your acreage enjoying the view, improve both your view and your bank account by getting serious about “gentleman farming”, modern share cropping.”
“Everything old is new again,” I said. “But I still want a tractor. Maybe one of those cool Kubotas”
“You can share it,” said Boats. “But remember: nothing runs like a Deer.”
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
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