When Daddy was still alive, we farmed a couple hundred acres of our land, along with 300-400 of family land. Cows, hogs, chickens and sometimes goats and sheep. Corn and hay for livestock feed. Over the years as we lost access to the extra land, we had to cut back on the number of cows and hogs. We went heavy into truck farming. Peas, melons and peppers mainly. Farmers markets are tricky. You can't post prices (here in Florida anyway), so folks have to stop and ask. Also space inside is always limited. If you want a good spot you have to be there really early. We picked late in the afternoon, and my parents headed out before day with the load. They were great at it. I did better with melons at grocery stores and restaurants. I couldn't stand to sit around for hours at the market.
We gradually went to pine trees, but still ran a few cows on the land. You need to let your trees get 4-5 years old before you put cows on them. Pine trees make good rubbing posts and if you let them in too soon, lots of trees will get pushed over.
Almost 20 years ago when Daddy died I got out of the cow business. Mamma and Sister both ran herds for a few more years. I put all my land in pine trees. Was working out great until Hurricane Micheal. The 20 acres behind the sandhill house was paying $100 bucks an acre per year in pinestraw. The $2K paid most of the land taxes. Now it's going to cost $10K to get back to zero. Not sure if I'm going back in pines or not. I'm a couple months shy of 60, so could get to pinestraw in 10 years, but likely would not live to see them ready for sawlogs. I'm looking into hemp, which is good money if you can get your harvest processed. Small hemp farmers here are having trouble getting that done. Not to mention that I chuck pollen as a hobby, and that wouldn't work with 20 acres of hemp in the neighborhood.
The remains of my longleaf pines.