Complex sentence: It was originally an area of farm land, but the soil was so poor that arable crop farming was nearly impossible and as a result the people in the settlement had to find other means of making a living from the earliest times through manufacture and trade.
Split into simpler sentences: It was originally an area of farm land, but the soil was so poor that arable crop farming was nearly impossible. As a result the people in the settlement had to find other means of making a living from the earliest times through manufacture and trade.