They were idealists, vegetarians, but they had bought a draft horse to do cultivation with. That ended pretty quick. The farm itself didn't last too many years longer. The first couple I mentioned were right about animals in one sense, if you try to keep them penned up all the time, it is indeed a tremendous amount of work. You either make a very large fence, to get enough pasture, and this fence needs constant patrolling and fixing, or you cut and haul forage by the ton.
Most people do both.
We ought to remember that animals that can do work by essentially walking or running great distances evolved that capability by needing to cover large distances, using and needing very large amounts of land. And trying to make this land here into permanent pasture is not much better than tilling it, the grass does not put roots down deep enough to counteract the leaching of nutrients in the amount of rainfall we get here. When you look at the amount of energy you get back, for what you put in, for keeping draft animals under these conditions, I think it is a marginal situation to begin with. Throw in the sustainability considerations of diminishing returns and it is completely blown. Look, folks, we have to get realistic about this situation.