Ten Acres Enough

Description

CONTENTS.
MM
CHAPTER I. City Experiences Moderate Expectations 9
CHAPTER II. Practical Views Safety of Investments in
Land 15
CHAPTER HI. Resolved to go Escape from Business
Choosing a Location 22
CHAPTER IV. Buying a Farm Anxiety to sell Forced to
quit 29
CHAPTER V. Making a Purchase First Impressions 37
CHAPTER VI. Planting a Peach-orchard How to preserve
Peach-trees . . . .” 42
CHAPTER VII. Planting Raspberries and Strawberries
Tricks of the Nursery 53
CHAPTER VIII. Blackberries A Remarkable Coincidence. 60
CHAPTER IX. The Garden Female Management Comforts
and Profits 69
CHAPTER X. Cheated in a Cow A Good and a Bad One
The Saint of the Barnyard 76
CHAPTER XL A Cloud of Weeds Great Sales of Plants. . 86
CHAPTER XII. Pigs and Poultry Luck and 111 Luck 98
CHAPTER XIII. City and Country Life contrasted 110

CHAPTER XIV. Two Acres in Truck Revolution in Agriculture
118
CHAPTER XV. Birds, and the Services they Render 181
CHAPTER XVI. Close of my First Year Its Loss and Gain 141
CHAPTER XVII. My Second Year Trenching the Garden
Strawberry Profits 148
CHAPTER XVIII. Raspberries The Lawtons 1G7
CHAPTER XIX. Liquid Manures An Illustration 177
CHAPTER XX. My Third Year Liquid Manure Three
Years’ Results 188
CHAPTER XXI. A Barnyard Manufactory Land Enough
Faith in Manure 200
CHAPTER XXII. Profits of Fruit-growing The Trade in
Berries it 212
CHAPTER XXIII. Gentleman-farming Establishing a Home 230
CHAPTER XXIV. Unsuccessful Men Rebellion not Ruinous
to Northern Agriculture . 238
CHAPTER XXV. Where to Locate East or West . . . . 248

From the Preface:

THE man who feeds his cattle on a thousand hills may possibly see the title of this little volume paraded through the newspapers ; but the chances are that he will never think it worth while to look into the volume itself. The owner of a hundred acres will scarcely step out of his way to purchase or to borrow it, while the lord of every smaller farm will be sure it is not intended for him. Few persons belonging to these several classes have been educated to believe Ten Acres Enough. Born to greater ambition, they have aimed higher and grasped at more, sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Many of these are now owning or cultivating more land than their heads or purses enable them to manage properly. Had their ambition been moderate, and their ideas more practical, their labor would be better rewarded, and this book, without doubt, would have found more readers.
The mistaken ambition for owning twice as much land as one can thoroughly manure or profitably cultivate, is the great agricultural sin of this country. Those who commit it, by beginning wrong, too frequently continue wrong. Owning many acres is the sole idea. High cultivation of a small tract, is one of which they have little knowledge. Too many in these several classes think they know enough. They measure a man’s knowledge by the number of his acres. Hence, in their eyes the owner of a plot so humble as mine must know so little as to be unable to teach them any thing new.
Happily, it is not for these that I write, and hence it would be unreasonable to expect them to become readers. I write more particularly for those who have not been brought up as farmers for that numerous body of patient toilers in city, town, and village, who, like myself, have struggled on from year to year, anxious to break away from the bondage of the desk, the counter, or the workshop, to realize in the country even a moderate income, so that it be a sure one. Many such are constantly looking round in this direction for something which, with less mental toil and anxiety, will provide a maintenance for a growing family, and afford a refuge for advancing age some safe and quiet harbor, sheltered from the constantly recurring monetary and political convulsions which in this country so suddenly reduce men to poverty. But these inquirers find no experienced pioneers to lead the way, and they turn back upon themselves, too fearful to go forward alone. Books of personal experience like this are rare. This is written for the information of the class referred to, for men not only willing, but anxious to learn. Once in the same predicament myself, I know their longings, their deficiencies, and the steps they ought to take. Hence, in seeking to make myself fully understood, some may think that I have been unnecessarily minute. But in setting forth my own crudities, I do but save others from repeating them. Yet with all this amplification, my little contribution will occasion no crowding even upon a book-shelf which may be already filled.
I am too new a farmer to be the originator of all the ideas which are here set forth. Some, which seemed to be appropriate to the topic in hand, have been incorporated with the argument as it progressed ; while in some instances, even the language of writers, whose names were unknown to me, has also been adopted.