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Although the dollar values are all clearly outdated (I was multiplying everything by 100 in my head throughout the book), his methods seem reasonably sound.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