The Fat of the Land

Urban Homesteading is the new trend, but as the hippies and Thoreau knew it has been done before. The Nearings were the new 20 century back to the landers in the US; John Seymour was their equivalent in the UK. Starting in the 50s, having previously lived on a boat, he moved into an old estate cottage in the middle of nowhere and with his potter wife began his quest to become self sufficient. Part memoir, part practical guide, the book is told with British humor and down to earthiness. It is a treasure and has converted this reader into a John Seymour fan. Seymour went on to write several other great books and to broadcast for TV and radio.

John Seymour writes as if working alongside you and enjoying every moment of it. This is a nice complement to his "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It." This man clearly knew what he was talking about and drew from long years of personal experience.

I love narratives of people's experiences. Those are probably my very favorite types of books. We know and love John Seymour from later books based more on skills, how to, but this is his narrative, of his life with his family in England in the 1950s. Yeah, so he divorced and later moved to Ireland (hey, I'd rather live in Ireland too). This is still a beautiful and inspirational book. But perhaps it takes a strange person like me to get excited reading about how a man grew turnips then pastured his hogs on them, and how they then canned the meat and how delicious it was. Re-thatching his house was also very interesting, and a prescient comment on the state of real skills today. Hmmm, I think I'll go read it again.

The topics and themes in this book are quite common ideals these days, but when this book was written, John Seymour was an iconoclastic idealist. He bucked the trend of wanting everything new, easy-to-use and shiny as a consumer, and he bucked the trend of mechanistic, big business farming. And he can write.Read it if you like gardening or dream of a hobby farm, or if you regularly wear hand-knitted jumpers and bake your own bread. Leave it alone if those things leave you cold.

living on a afrm as a youngster this book brought many happy memories. highly recommend this, enjoyable read ,just one word of advice,if you read it in bed like i did expect a poke or two in the back........cause youl wake the mrs laughing !!!! :-)

This is such an interesting book. Well written, I feel as if I was actually there at The Broom with John and Sally, learning how to do things as they went along, being economical, making do with whatever came to hand. Sally's illustrations are absolutely charming. The foreword is interesting, too. In fact, I am inspired to grow more, and make more things from the produce we gather from our own garden and hedgerows.

Great book and tells a great story with some sound advice along the way. It's a collection of memories - Not a 'how to' manual - so I wouldn't read it with the ambition of being able to do exactly what JS did. But he has a unique viewpoint (albeit of its time) and tells it well. The afterword is also brilliantly written in my view.

Forerunner to Self Sufficiency.

Classic.

A good read. With a jenuwine life story. But very informative at the same time.

Very nice book

This is the book that inspired "The Good Life" TV series, and is a fascinating and wonderful insight into the life of John Seymour as he becomes self-sufficient. It is the most uplifting and entertaining book and I would recommend it to everybody.

I would recommend this book to anyone. If you intend to do a tiny bit or a lot of things for yourself you should read this book, its the best insight into real life I think along with the complete guide to self suffiency, its one of the best reads ever.

Jglad I read it

One of my favourite books on homesteading and simple living is The Simple Life and How to Live It, by John Seymour, who was often called "The father of self-sufficiency." Sprinkled within that text are fascinating excerpts from this earlier book he wrote, The Fat of the Land, in which he told the personal story of the homestead he and his wife created back in the 1950s on a rented property in the UK.The Fat of the Land seems to be difficult to come across--print runs are few and of limited quantity--but last year I did find a new copy on Amazon. I enjoyed reading it very much. While some of the information is dated, and while many of the British terms Seymour used were incomprehensible to me (those pertaining to money and measurement especially), overall I did get a lot out this book.I liked the way Seymour showed how their homestead grew gradually over time. When he and his wife first moved into their remote cottage, which they rented for a mere 25 pounds per year, they had been living for several years on a boat. They wanted to settle down because they already had one child and planned to have more. But they hadn't planned on creating a homestead in the least--it just evolved over time, as one thing led to another.For example, they started out by getting some ducks and geese to save money on meat. Then, a cow, because it was too much work to walk a mile every morning to the nearest neighbour to pick up their milk. They then had more milk than their young family could use, so they purchased pigs to consume the excess milk--then, with all the manure from the cow and pigs they decided to increase their gardening. Then, because they then had so much land under cultivation, they bought a horse to help with the work. And of course then they needed to improve their grassland for the horse...and so on.I liked the way he showed that while producing your own food is an economical, healthy, and satisfying thing to do, it does take a lot of hard physical work. He doesn't gloss over the amount of work that goes into a homestead, or romanticize anything about this kind of life. In fact sometimes he is rather blunt about various elements of country living. But he is enthusiastic about fresh air, unadulterated food, and hard work as an effective means to achieve good health to an old age. (And in fact, Seymour did live to the age of 90, staying active until shortly before his death.)There is a section at the back, written for a later edition, where he gives specific advice for those wanting to start their own homestead. He is not optimistic here that many of us can do it with rising land prices, and praises the idea of communal living.Overall, I think The Fat of the Land is a worthwhile read for those starting on their own homestead, or just dreaming of it. It will give the reader a good understanding of the way plants and animals on a small family homestead exist interdependently as part of a whole, and will also perhaps diffuse some of the overly romantic notions a few of us have about life in the country.

Pur essendo datato il libro propone, in modo semplice e comprensibile, uno stile di vita che è quanto di più attuale potrebbe esserci. Accompagnando il protagonista nelle sue avventure "contadine", il lettore entra in contatto con concetti e strumenti per vivere nella natura, della natura e nel pieno rispetto di essa. E' un insegnamento molto concreto e pratico.