{"id":8,"date":"2009-08-21T16:37:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T00:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/back-to-the-land_old\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T21:32:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T04:32:32","slug":"back-to-the-land-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/back-to-the-land-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our line of back-to-the-land books includes three books: Ten Acres Enough<\/a>, Gold in the Grass<\/a>, and We Wanted a Farm<\/a>. These are entertaining, thought-provoking, useful, and provide charming slices of Americana that are impossible to get any other way.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ten Acres Enough<\/a><\/strong> by Edmund Morris is a wonderful book, a classic back-to-the-land adventure from 1864 that has been reprinted over the years by several publishers. Morris was a newspaper publisher in Philadelphia who yearned to get out of the high pressure of the news business and live a simpler, healthier life in the country. He found a little farm that was just an hour away from the city and, after some false starts, he and his family made an excellent living on just ten acres.<\/p>\n

Because the passage of time has made this book increasingly inaccessible, we have copy-edited it from end to end so it will make sense to today’s readers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Gold in the Grass<\/a><\/strong> by Margaret Leatherbarrow is a back-to-the-land adventure from 1954, (almost a centurey after Ten Acres Enough).<\/i> It tells the rags-to-riches story about wounded WWII soldier Alfred Leatherbarrow and his nurse Margaret, who fell in love in the hospital, got married, and bought a played-out farm that everyone thought was too far gone to provide them with a living. Alfred and Margaret finally succeed after adopting soil reclamation and sustainable farming techniques.<\/p>\n

\"\"We Wanted a Farm<\/a><\/strong> is a forgotten classic by M. G. Kains, author of “Five Acres and Independence.” It is full of anecdote and tells the tale of his three-step back-to-the-land program, where he first moved from Manhattan to a rented house in the suburbs (where he raised a big garden), then a purchased house in the suburbs (where he planted a bigger garden with plenty of berries and fruit trees), and finally a move to the country, where he went into orcharding in a big way. Very entertaining, especially the chapter about the on-farm uses of dynamite!<\/p>\n

Ordering<\/h2>\n

We recommend Amazon.com as the most convenient and reliable source of our books. Use the listings and shopping cart above to order from Amazon.<\/p>\n

For additional options, see our How to Order<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our line of back-to-the-land books includes three books: Ten Acres Enough, Gold in the Grass, and We Wanted a Farm. These are entertaining, thought-provoking, useful, and provide charming slices of Americana that are impossible to get any other way. Ten Acres Enough by Edmund Morris is a wonderful book, a classic back-to-the-land adventure from 1864 … Continue reading “Back to the Land”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-back-to-the-land"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P71zFO-8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":272,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/back-to-the-land-2\/ten-acres-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":0},"title":"Ten Acres Enough","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"November 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"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. ISBN 978-0-9721770-8-5. 176 pages. Ten years after Henry David Thoreau learned how to be a poor farmer, Edmund Morris learned how to be a good one. Ten Acres\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Back to the Land"","block_context":{"text":"Back to the Land","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/category\/back-to-the-land\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Ten_acres_enough_cover_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":50,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/back-to-the-land-2\/we_wanted_a_farm\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":1},"title":"We Wanted a Farm","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"August 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A Back-to-the-Land Adventure by the Author of \"Five Acres and Independence\" by M. G. Kains Norton Creek Press. Revised Edition, October 2008, 172 pages. ISBN 0972177094. Best known for his classic small-farm handbook, Five Acres and Independence, M. G. Kains contributed a second gem to back-to-the-land literature: his true-life adventures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Back to the Land"","block_context":{"text":"Back to the Land","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/category\/back-to-the-land\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/m_g_kains_350-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/how-to-order\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":2},"title":"How to Order","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"November 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Order From Us Of the Dynamic Duo who make up Norton Creek Press, the publishing side and this Website are maintained by me, Robert Plamondon. My wife, Karen Black, serves as our steely-eyed editor and has a secret identity as a seller of fine used books. She sells both our\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":274,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/back-to-the-land-2\/gold-in-the-grass\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":3},"title":"Gold in the Grass","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"November 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Rags to Riches Through Soil Reclamation and Sustainable Farming by Margaret F. Leatherbarrow Norton Creek Press, 218 pages. ISBN 0972177051. As World War II was ending, Alfred Leatherbarrow, a wounded Canadian veteran, and his nurse, Margaret, fell in love, married, bought their dream farm\u2014and discovered that their crops would not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Back to the Land"","block_context":{"text":"Back to the Land","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/category\/back-to-the-land\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/gold_in_the_grass_cover_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/about_us\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":4},"title":"About Us","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"April 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Norton Creek Press is a small publishing house in Blodgett Oregon. We (Robert Plamondon and Karen Black) started Norton Creek Press because most of the books we wanted to recommend to people were out of print. This was frustrating! Also, after trying it both ways, Robert prefers self-publishing the books\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/poultry\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":5},"title":"Poultry Books","author":"Robert Plamondon","date":"February 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We've written, edited, and republished our favorite chicken\u00a0books. Our theme? Practical knowledge and techniques used by old-time farmers. Our first foray into the chicken-book field\u00a0was Success With Baby Chicks. Robert Plamondon wrote this book after realizing that people like you are having heartbreaking failures with baby chicks; problems we learned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poultry"","block_context":{"text":"Poultry","link":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/category\/poultry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/covershot_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nortoncreekpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}