"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
news:bc92c45e2e3bc7e00e3c991175d8c7cf.45219@mygate .mailgate.org...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message


The life of subsistence farmers tends to be hard, by definition it
consists
of work and sleep with pretty damn boring food (bread/[porridge with
occassional meat and a few seasonable veg.)
Don't be silly.

The whole of the United states and Canada produced a rich variety of
food and veg the kind that had never been seen in Europe until we sent
them plagues and genocidal maniacs.

Even today most people who live on the subsistance level in regions not
damaged by war, commerce and politics lead dynamic fruitful lives and
some sources state they seldom work more than 4 hours a day. If this
includes hunting, fishing and walks in the park, that's a hell of a lot
of time left over for sex if you don't have a TV and a mortgage.

First you are not talking about subsistence farmers, you are talking about
hunter gatherers. At that level of technology Europe might just have a
population of a million, or less, but by definition you would never know
because you would never meet anyone you didn't walk to meet

I suggest you talk to the archaeologists. Awful lot of female skeletons
show chronic arthritis from grinding grain by hand. Life expectancy of about
30 - 40 for the lower orders.

However if you like the lifestyle, you can buy agricultural land for less
than 3000 an acre pretty well anywhere in the UK so sell the house and
become a subsistence farmer

Jim Webster