Customer Reviews

Malabar Farm

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Bromfield's Malabar Farm is more or less the sequel to Pleasant Valley. While Pleasant Valley flows like a continuous story, Malabar Farm is more disconnected, and is really a set of essays that don't attempt to be in chronological order, and are occasionally redundant. Bromfield comes across here as more arrogant about his approach to farming, however, there is still a good deal of interesting material, and if you've read Pleasant Valley and liked it, you will appreciate finding out what happened over the next few years. By this time, they had given up on being a general purpose farm, and had become specialized as a grass farm focused on both beef and dairy cattle. He spends quite a while rationalizing this, and indeed, I found his discussion of this insightful as it represents the beginning of the development of the large, specialized farms of today. He presents the argument both economically and technologically. Also, this book talks more about mechanization which is featured only a bit in Pleasant Valley. Summary: not as good as Pleasant Valley, but if you read and enjoyed Pleasant Valley you will want to read this too. This book could be read independently of Pleasant Valley but will make a lot more sense if you have read that first.

A continuation of life on the farm started in Pleasant Valley. More information on improving soil, a chapter on animals on the farm (always delightful), chapters on grass--the author has focused on raising cattle, chapters on creating ponds to stock fish (interesting to see the cycle of life in a healthy pond), information on earthworms. There's also a chapter on the organic fertilizer vs chemical fertlizer debate. Here he tries to create a balance, feeling that being a fanatic for either side is limited and though he does focus on improving soil naturally he's not opposed to chemical fertilizers. He did die at a relatively young age of bone cancer and one wonders if chemical fertilzers and herbicides/pesticides played a part. He said he was the 'fertlizer man' on the farm and also used herbicides and pesticides at first. It is sad if that's the case, devoted as he was to good farming and getting nutrients from the soil into the crops, beef and milk to prevent nutrient deficiencies in people.