Ok, here we go. I'm reviewing a book I haven't finished reading.
Finding & Buying Your Place in the Country, by Les and Carol Scher, covers some of the same ground as How To Find Your Ideal Country Home by Gene GeRue. But where Gene tells you what to look for, Les and Carol are your angels telling you what to look OUT for.
There are forms, checklists, anecdotes, maps, diagrams, charts. There are addresses, websites, and email addresses. They tell you where the rainfall is, where the good soil is, and where the toxic waste dump is. And they tell you how to get detailed information about the land YOU want.
They give you advice on how to proceed without involving lawyers, and tell you when you absolutely MUST have one. They give you sample contracts, deeds, and checklists. They abound in good, sensible advice on how to find property, evaluate it, and negotiate the price. They inform you about water and easement rights, zoning issues, and eminent domain. There's even a chapter on specifically-Canadian issues.
The book is so packed with information that you have to take it at a slow crawl. I checked it out from the library, renewed it once, and had to return it unfinished because someone else had placed a hold on it. So, whoever you are, good luck! I hope you find your place in the country!
Finding & Buying Your Place in the Country, by Les and Carol Scher, is available new and used. You can even read some of it on Google Books.
If you are seriously looking back-to-the-land, buy both Finding & Buying Your Place in the Country and How To Find Your Ideal Country Home.
Showing posts with label back-to-the-land. Show all posts
Showing posts with label back-to-the-land. Show all posts
16 October 2008
07 October 2008
Book Review: How To Find Your Ideal Country Home
In How To Find Your Ideal Country Home, Gene GeRue takes you step-by-step through the process of identifying your ideal location. As a one-time real estate agent, he focuses on "Location, location, location!" as the three most important aspects of your place in the country.
In the discussion of terrain, climate, water rights, mineral rights, culture and culture shock, access, taxes, pollution, and more, Gene shows how to narrow your search to the specific regions most likely to meet your goals. Then he piles on the advice:
The copy I read came via interlibrary loan; used copies are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Shopping, and probably every used book store on the web.
In the discussion of terrain, climate, water rights, mineral rights, culture and culture shock, access, taxes, pollution, and more, Gene shows how to narrow your search to the specific regions most likely to meet your goals. Then he piles on the advice:
- Don't fall in love until AFTER the sale;
- The real estate agent isn't working for YOU;
- Practice the 10/1 Rule: Visit ten properties, rank them by your preference, then buy the first one you find that is BETTER than your highest rank;
- Know who has the mineral, water and timber rights;
- Buying next to Federal land guarantees NOTHING.
The copy I read came via interlibrary loan; used copies are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Shopping, and probably every used book store on the web.
23 September 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
27 August 2008
Book Review: Flight from the City
At the beginning of the Roaring 20's, Ralph Borsodi and his family were forced to move out of their rented house in New York City. But instead of searching endlessly in the middle of a housing shortage for worse accommodations at higher prices, they packed up and moved out to seven acres of land an hour and an half away from the city.
Here they set up to become as nearly self-sufficient as possible. Mr. Borsodi developed and promulgated through his books the theory of "production for use", advocating that products should be manufactured and consumed locally, preferably at the homestead level, and not "produced for profit".
Mr. Borsodi is one of the pioneers of the "back-to-the-land" movement. His works predate those of Helen and Scott Nearing by at least a decade, and his ideas are found, uncredited, on homesteads and in books across the country.
Flight from the City is public domain and available from both archive.org and soilandhealth.org.
Here they set up to become as nearly self-sufficient as possible. Mr. Borsodi developed and promulgated through his books the theory of "production for use", advocating that products should be manufactured and consumed locally, preferably at the homestead level, and not "produced for profit".
Mr. Borsodi is one of the pioneers of the "back-to-the-land" movement. His works predate those of Helen and Scott Nearing by at least a decade, and his ideas are found, uncredited, on homesteads and in books across the country.
Flight from the City is public domain and available from both archive.org and soilandhealth.org.
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