Book Review: Ten Acres Enough

When I think of homesteading, I think of self-reliance and independence. My dream is to do it all myself, unrealistic as that may be. I'm NOT thinking about truck farming, on any scale.

Your dreams may differ. Certainly Edmund Morris' did! In about 1853, at the age of 49, he sold his business in the city, and moved with wife and six (!) children to a New Jersey farm of 11 acres. There he successfully built a profitable enterprise, selling fruit and vegetables to suppliers in New York City and Philadelphia. He even managed to turn a small profit in his FIRST year, which he admits was due more to a stroke of luck than anything else.

Although the dollar values are all clearly outdated (I was multiplying everything by 100 in my head throughout the book), his methods seem reasonably sound.

• He knew his market, and grew for sale what the market demanded.
  
• He provided quality product, not quantity.
  
• He practiced preventative maintenance.
• He lived frugally and economically, for which he completely credits his wife's management.
  
• He bought the best tools he could afford, and cared for them properly.
• He constantly worked to replenish the land, with compost, manure, lime and ash.
• He stuck with what worked, but also experimented with new things.
• He didn't pay any attention to what the neighbors thought, but was also happy to learn from their successes.
  

One passage I found interesting was his account of a German farmer who had started from nothing to build a successful farm (Chapter 19). Morris relates how this farmer had collected the contents of the family "water closet" to use in manuring the fields, which reminded me of "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins, available in print or online at josephjenkins.com

By 1857, Morris was well-established, and was economically unworried when the Civil War ("the late slaveholders' rebellion") broke out.

There are lots of lessons to be found in this book. Maybe I need to expand my dream.

"Ten Acres Enough", Edmund Morris, 1864, is in print and available through Amazon and other bookstores, or online at dozens of locations. I saw it first at http://www.soilandhealth.org/, but also at http://www.archive.org/details/tenacresenoughpr00morrrich, where you can download a complete PDF from the 1905 printing.

Dreams of Homesteading

My earliest inclination to homesteading I inherited from my mother. She had the Reader's Digest "Back to Basics" book, and I would look at it for HOURS. Also on her shelf were the Foxfire books.

But not until my parents retired did she get her place in the country, near her childhood home in Parker's Prairie, MN. And by the time she turned 70, she was wheelchair-bound, and never has really enjoyed her dream.

I don't want that.

I want to get away from cities and asphalt and Code Red air. I want to get away from prostitutes and tourists. I want to get away from contracts and clearances. I want to get away from Congresscritters and bureaucrats.

In short, I live near Washington, DC.

I live in an upstairs piggyback condo with effectively NO attached property. And until recently, I liked it that way. I don't have any lawn to mow, and that was the way I wanted it.

On the other hand, I have the dream of standing on my wrap-around porch and looking out to the horizon, saying smugly, "Yep. That's mine."

All I want is MY 300 square miles! What's wrong with that? ;-)

The problem is, I have lots of things I'm trying to get away FROM--but what am I running TO? I can picture myself PLANNING the perfect homestead, but I never seem to picture myself in a garden. I can say, "Yes, goats would seem to be an ideal small stock for milk or meat," but I never imagine myself actually getting up to do the milking.

Not that I have a problem with getting up early--my alarm goes off at 4:30 AM now.

I plan, I dream, I ponder, but I never DO what it will take. And I'm afraid to find out that I won't enjoy eating from my own garden, won't enjoy the simple, frugal life as much as I think I will.

When I come down to it, I'm lazy. I only want to do a job once, and make it so I never have to do it again. That's one of the requirements for being a good engineer, and I think in many ways I am. But lazy don't get the crops in, and even though I like to go camping, I have to say I hate getting caught in the rain.

I'm not so much attracted to country living as I am despairing of life in the city. Gas has hit $4/gallon. Electricity has nearly doubled in the last 3 years. Federal energy policy is mandating ethanol from corn for biofuel, ignoring the facts that corn is not the best source, that the transfer of corn from feedstock to fermentation vat is driving up the price of meat and milk, and the transfer of land from raising other crops to raising corn is creating a corporate farming monoculture and driving up the cost of other foods, like bread and vegetables.

And then there's NAIS, and Monsanto, and GM crops, and petroleum fertilizers, and pesticides, and cancer, and, and, and...

I'm not predicting the imminent end of the world. I'm just convinced that being able to do for myself is good insurance--Simple Prudence, to coin a phrase--against almost anything but Doomsday.

But I'm still running FROM, not TO.

And then my "reason" kicks in. "You can't go off and become a subsistence farmer in Rural America! Your daughter is starting college in 440 DAYS, and your sons are following in 4 and 8 years! You can't just Tune Out, Turn Off, and Drop In--you've got bills! You've got responsibilities! YOU'VE GOT A JOB!"

I wish I could shut me up. But I make some good points--I have a responsibility to my kids, and I need to fulfill it.

TALK, TALK, TALK. I'm shutting up now. I'm too depressing.