Sentence:  Her father was a fisherman, and her family fed itself by <WSD>crofting</WSD>--age-old, small-plot, subsistence farming—living in a modest gray pebble-dash house, surrounded by a landscape of properties local historians and genealogists characterized with terms like “human wretchedness” and “indescribably filthy.” 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A form of land tenure and small-scale food production, unique to the Highlands and islands of Scotland, in which individual crofts are established on the better land while a large area of poor-quality hill ground is shared by all the crofters of the township for grazing.