on the steep part, why don't you try to grow some gourds/squash for fall? the american wings decorative ones sell well, and also the little ones (jack be little) that look like pumpkins. They pretty much take care of themselves, and don't require a lot of water. Maybe some acorn or butternut or spaghetti squash. I don't recall them needing a whole lot of water last time I grew them.
If you do corn, you're likely to need lots of fertilizer if it's a poor quality hay field, it's likely to be a poor quality cornfield without a lot of help on your part. They're both grasses...get your soil testing done for sure.

Thanks Sandy, that's what I was thinking, corn is a grass - I've been insisting that I won't grow corn b/c it requires too much N and takes too much out of the land. But without being able to fence it and have animals (no barn), I don't really know how I'm going to restore fertility to the land. My great-uncle told me that that field was the best land on the whole farm. I don't know, the part my uncle owns now and maintains as lawn looks great...

But short of sowing clover or some sort of legume (and keeping the deer out), I don't know what to do. And clover isn't going to pay for the Brush Hog.

Thought about doing pumpkins (I have some Jack Be Little seed I bought last year to plant some for the kids), but since I can't really do PYO (no parking other than my cousin's driveway) I didn't think those would be that profitable. Same with winter squash - we like it, but people won't go out of their way for it, and even if I did market next year it ends in Sept so hard to get it ready by then (needs to cure).

Horse hay will sell around here - but I don't know what to plant for that. And a lot of people want the round bales, not going to get into the equipment for that!

As far as I'm concerned, we can just let the field grow up, but DH and Dad have been trying to keep it clear for over a decade, I hate to let brush grow now. But about all the good it does is give my cousin a nice view...

My corn crop was a failure this year, largely because the ground had not been worked in a long time. Corn has always been more trouble than it's worth for me on a small scale. If I don't buy the BT corn, it has worms, and every ear has to have the end chopped off because customers really hate wormy corn. And that seed is of course expensive.

Letting someone else make hay is the only maintenance-free crop that I know of. You can split the hay and sell your half.

My dad used to hay it but he says he won't any more. It was really poor-quality hay, and not much of it (about 100 bales off the whole piece - I thought it was an acre or so, he told me yesterday it was over 5!). He knows another farmer in town who spent $4000 renovating his field and this year got less off it than last year (even with the drought last year!), and then the first cutting got wet. Dad couldn't even sell all his hay this year - neighbor picked up some in the field but then DH had to help Dad pick up the rest and bring it down here to put in my cousin's barn.

I had about 150 ft of potatoes last year, did really well even with the drought (dug them early and sold them all as new potatoes so I didn't have to keep watering, or worry about late blight). Corn sells 50 cents an ear here, don't know how many marketable ears I'd get off 5 acres but would need to fertilize. But since my great-uncle told me that they had cleared all the stones out of that field, I'm thinking maybe do a LOT of potatoes there next year? Again, might not be something people would go out of their way for like they would corn, I'd have to bring them to market or wholesale them, but yield (and profit, with no lime or fertilizer needed, no worms, and I was selling organic new potatoes for $4/qt, $3/lb last year) might be better? Don't know if can plant again the following year (depends on LB) but does that sound like a plan?

Lots of work to plant and dig by hand (maybe I can rig something up like Mark or Jay has to pull behind tractor), but I don't know that it's any more work than corn - except for hilling...

Sweet corn, while being a good seller, isn't as good on the $/per acre as many other crops.

Around here, the corn farmers will plant pumpkins/gourds in the steep parts or nothing.

I agree, if it doesn't do good for hay, I'm not sure what would do good.

I'm thinking it might be compacted, but if we can loosen up enough to dig and hill (and if my great-uncle was right, no stones) then potatoes don't mind more acid pH and lower N?

Last time I had it tested was 2011 and the test results were pH 5.7, Low Nitrate, Medium Ammonium, Very Low P, Medium K, Medium High Ca, Very High Mg. Of course with all the wet weather that August and this June, levels are probably lower.

if you've got a tractor and the market for them then potatoes are a good crop. we planted 1000' by hand this year. used the tractor to till, hill, and dig. have to pick them up by hand. we used spinosad to control colorado potato beetles. it took but one spraying with that. this is a late blight susceptible area and i sprayed copper once and that kept the plants going for a while.
best seller is yukon gold followed by adirondack blue, then red pontiacs and kennebecs both are kinda slow movers. but eventually they will all sell.