Ten Acres Enough

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

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, $14.95.

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.

Robert Plamondon
September 15, 2008

About My Farm

I have a flock of 600 free-range laying hens, and my wife Karen Black raises about 2,000 pastured broilers per year.

Table of Contents

City Experiences
Practical Views
Resolved To Go
Buying a Farm
Making a Purchase
Planting a Peach Orchard
Planting Raspberries and Strawberries
Blackberries
The Garden
Cheated In a Cow
A Cloud of Weeds
Pigs
City And Country Life Contrasted
Two Acres In Truck
Birds, And The Services They Render
Close Of My First Year
My Second Year
Liquid Manures—An Illustration
My Third Year
A Barnyard Manufactory
Profits of Fruit-Growing
Gentleman-Farming
Unsuccessful Men
Where To Locate: East Or West?

Read a Sample Chapter

Read a simple chapter: My Second Year.

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