Ten Acres Enough

Small-Farm Self-Sufficiency Through High-Quality Produce
A Back-to-the-Land Adventure from 1864

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By Edmund Morris
“Revived Edition” Edited by Robert Plamondon

Norton Creek Press, September 2008. ISBN 978-0-9721770-8-5. 176 pages.

Suggested Retail price, $17.95 (Kindle $4.97).

Ten years after Henry David Thoreau learned how to be a poor farmer, Edmund Morris learned how to be a good one. Ten Acres Enough is the personal story of how Morris quit the publishing business and achieved happiness and prosperity by farming ten acres of fruits and berries.

Rather than glorifying poverty and isolation, Ten Acres Enough shows farming as the path to financial security, while still providing all the benefits of country life—provided that the farmer understands that the key lies in producing crops of the highest possible quality, while living within striking distance of a major market.

Ten Acres Enough has left its mark on generations of back-to-the-land farmers. Its influence on both the title and the contents of M. G. Kains’ classic Five Acres and Independence (1935) is obvious. And it is benefiting readers today, whether as a piece of Americana or as a source of small-farm ideas and inspiration.

Through nearly 150 years old, Ten Acres Enough remains a fascinating book. However, the passage of time is making the original edition increasingly inaccessible due to its archaic vocabulary and style. I have copy-edited this “Revived Edition” to restore its clarity. I have also removed needless repetition, added footnotes where necessary (all footnotes are mine), and provided inflation-adjusted prices in addition to the originals. I think Morris would approve.

Table of Contents

  1. City Experiences
  2. Practical Views
  3. Resolved To Go
  4. Buying a Farm
  5. Making a Purchase
  6. Planting a Peach Orchard
  7. Planting Raspberries and Strawberries
  8. Blackberries
  9. The Garden
  10. Cheated In a Cow
  11. A Cloud of Weeds
  12. Pigs
  13. City And Country Life Contrasted
  14. Two Acres In Truck
  15. Birds, And The Services They Render
  16. Close Of My First Year
  17. My Second Year
  18. Liquid Manures: An Illustration
  19. My Third Year
  20. A Barnyard Manufactory
  21. Profits of Fruit-Growing
  22. Gentleman-Farming
  23. Unsuccessful Men
  24. Where To Locate: East Or West?

Read a Sample Chapter

Read a simple chapter: My Second Year.

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