Excellent, balanced all round guide to he subject, 04 Oct 1999
This represents probably the best guide to hedge creation, laying and renovation around, though it probably will not meet the need the needs of professional nurserymen and planters (Try 'New Hedges for the Countryside' for this). The new edition includes information from the National Hedgelaying Society on regional styles.
This book should be made compusary reading for anyone who eats food!!!, 05 Nov 2008
I have read many depressing books about how the world is going down the toilet: transport, electricity and agriculture are all taking their toll on the planet etc.
So far i haven't read any books that offer any solutions bar drive less, watch less TV, eat less.
Then i read The Carbon Fields - it might not cover the first two, but it definatly seems to have the answer for the third.
Graham manages to pull together a whole world of research, makes it accesable and offers some real answers, showing how you can eat at lot of the same food, just more healthily, whilst saving the planet. How can you not be intersted in that!?!?!?
Plus his system gives us a nice pretty coutryside to walk around in, not a giant plane of identikit GM farms and greenhouses.
Read this book, if we are all lucky it might change the world for the better....
A Country Life- November Book Review, 03 Nov 2005
This book was brilliant!
It gave an honest and fascinating account of who the real John Seymour was and I now find that I like the man even more...
It was good to see how he became the person he was and how his childhood had much to do with it- it was incredible really that in some ways he knew that he was different at such a young age but it just took a little while to find the 'Real John Seymour'....
I wasn't surprised to find out that he really was a 'people person'....I had guessed this from the books he wrote. What I hadn't realised was that he had come from really quite a wealthy and socialite family....something which he found he had nothing in common with rather spending his time with the 'real people' in the kitchens..
A fascinating man with a true personal philosophy- I want to hear more please!!!
Now I have devoured it I will savour it again slowly.....
Excellent, 19 Oct 2008
This book explains in good detail all the major silvicultural systems and should be read from start to finish by all forestry students in their first year.
Excellent!! A must have for every shelf!, 27 Feb 2008
This is a GREAT book. With the way the world is going at the moment there are some very real issues, that we all must become more self reliant. This book is a great start and has really encouraged me to prepare myself and my little family to be a little more aware of what is on offer around us!
I recommend this book to anyone who is a little nervous of the future. This book brings a little more reasurance that we might actually be OK, if we suddenly find ourselves fending for ourselves.
I do pity his poor family though, they must have been very longsuffering!!! Having said that, I think my poor husband is getting a little nervous when he saw me reading how to create great culinary delights out of grass!!
A good read, 11 Feb 2008
Mr Yeoman's book presents the frugal/self sufficient lifestyle by degrees. The book starts off with simple thrifty ideas and progresses through to radical self sufficient living.
I found it very interesting and full of lots of ideas worth trying. I've already done the bean sprouting and the yoghurt making with success! My only concerns are a lack of proper references for some of the more scientific sections about diet and nutrition; and a slight tendency to apocalyptic scaremongering towards the end.
orange peel, 28 May 2007
haven't read the book, but thought I'd comment on the other review that mentions orange peel as a fire starter. My Gran lived in a 2 up 2 down terrace with a "Yorkshire Range", and she always saved orange peel for starting the fire on a morning. I guess the other reviewer didn't dry it for long enough first.
regards
Mick
The idea is good, but....., 10 Mar 2005
When I first saw the book, I liked it a lot. The idea behind it (not complete self-sufficiency, but just a bit of independence from the consumer society - mainly by reducing the food bill) is good, the writing is amusing and easy to read.
BUT: When I read through for the first time I noticed some errors (soaked nettles smell just as bad as soaked animal dung - if not worse, the idea of putting wine into an oven that's hotter than for joghurt-making to get it up to drinking temperature could get Yeoman banned from France) and when I started to try out things, I found more (my orange peel are difficult enough to get to burn, I never managed to start a fire with them, as Yeoman suggests). Based on this, I certainly would not rely on the book for survival in a real life-or-death situation (as the last part, "Recipes for Real" suggests).
Still, there are some useful ideas - the best thing would probably be to borrow the book and copy down what seems useful. Writing down the good ideas is necessary anyway, as the table of contents is more concerned about being "cute" than informative ("Put a Tabby in the Tank"), the structure of chapters and sections is not always logical, and the index is not very useful either - I had to reread the book to find the section about conserving fat (which then worked).
A book without equal in the history of literacy, 05 Feb 2002
I can only add my praise to that of the previous reviewer - and in fact would go further. I would willingly deliver my lovely wife and charming children into slavery; divest myself of all material belongings and abseil naked down the Kangshung Face of Everest if, at the end, I could be guaranteed to find another book as good as this one.
