FIFTY years ago Edmund Morris pub- 

 lished a very convincing book in which 

 he told in plain, every-day language, his ex- 

 periences in leaving city commercial pursuits 

 and taking up the life of a farmer, raising 

 small fruits for market. This book, "Ten 

 Acres Enough, " has remained a classic from 

 that day, and curiously enough, in its practi- 

 cal references, bears with equal force on the 

 problems of to-day, and we have the added 

 advantage of a proper perspective. 



By arrangements with the owners of the copyright, we are giving, 

 hi this and the following instalments, the vital narrative of this 

 interesting story because it appeals so thoroughly to most of those 

 who are readers of The Garden Magazine. When Edmund 



Morris discussed the scare of the over-pro- 

 duction of nursery stock of fifty years ago 

 and the dread of possible glut through the 

 production of too much fruit, he presented 

 a case which fits exactly into our present- 

 day conditions. With more land under 

 cultivation, with a greater amount of nur- 

 sery stock sold and planted annually, there 

 is still an unsatisfied demand for good 

 fresh vegetables and high quality fruits. 

 The teachings set forth in" "Ten Acres- 

 Enough," of which the first instalment is given below, must 

 help in no small degree to a realization of how to meet some of the- 

 economic problems in the cost of living that are so vital an issue of 

 to-day. — The Editors. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH 



City Experiences — Moderate Expectations 



MY LIFE, up to the age of forty, had been spent 

 in my native city of Philadelphia. Like 

 thousands of others before me, I began the world 

 without a dollar, and with a very few friends in a 

 condition to assist me. Having saved a few hundred 

 dollars by dint of close application to business, I 

 married and went into business the same year. 

 These two contemporaneous drafts upon my little 

 capital proving heavier than I expected, they soon 

 used it up, leaving me thereafter greatly straitened 

 for means. It is true my business kept me, but, as it 

 was constantly expanding and was of such a nature 

 that a large proportion of my annual gain was 

 necessarily invested in tools, fixtures, and machinery 

 I was nearly always short of ready cash to carry 

 on my operations with comfort. At certain times, 

 also, it ceased to be profitable. The crisis of 1S37 

 nearly ruined me, and I was kept struggling along 

 during the five succeeding years of hard times, until 

 the revival of 1842 came round. Previous to this 

 crisis, necessity had driven me to the banks for dis- 

 counts, one of the sore evils of doing business upon 

 insufficient capital. As is always the case with these 

 institutions, they compelled me to return the bor- 

 rowed money at the very time it was least con- 

 venient for me to do so — they needed it as urgently 

 as myself. But to refund them I was compelled to 

 borrow elsewhere, and that too at excessives rates of 

 interest, thus increasing the burden while laboring 

 to shake it off . 



City Experiences 



THOUSANDS have gone through the same un- 

 happy experience, and been crushed by the 

 load. Such can anticipate my trials and privations. 

 Yet I was not insolvent. My property had cost me 

 far more than I owed, but if offered for sale at a time 

 when the whole community seemed to want money 

 only, no one could have been found to give cost. I 

 could not use it as the basis of a loan, neither could 

 I part with it without abandoning my business. 

 Hence I struggled on through that exhausting crisis, 

 haunted by perpetual fears of being dishonored at 

 the bank — lying down at night, not to peaceful 

 slumber, but to 'dream of fresh expedients to pre- 

 serve my credit for to-morrow. I have sometimes 

 thought that the pecuniary cares of that struggle 

 were severe enough to have shortened my life, had 

 they been much longer protracted. 



Besides the mental anxieties they occasioned, they 

 compelled a pinching economy of my family. But 



* Copyright. 1905, by Consolidated Retail Booksellers. 



in this latter effort I discovered my wife to be a 

 jewel of priceless value, coming up heroically to the 

 task, and relieving me of a world of care. With- 

 out her aid, her skill, her management, her uncom- 

 plaining cheerfulness, her sympathy in struggles so 

 inadequately rewarded as mine were, I should have 

 sunk into utter bankruptcy. Her economy was 

 not the mean, penny wise, pound foolish policy 

 which many mistake for true economy. It was the 

 art of calculation joined to the habit of order, and 

 the power of proportioning our wishes to the means 

 of gratifying them. The little pilfering temper of a 

 wife is despicable and odious to every man of sense 

 but there is a judicious, graceful economy, which has 

 no connection with an avaricious temper, and which, 

 as it depends upon the understanding, can be ex- 

 pected only from cultivated minds. Women who 

 have been well educated, far from despising domes- 

 tic duties, will hold them in high respect, because 

 they will see that the whole happiness of life is made 

 up of the happiness of each particular day and hour, 

 and that much of the enjoyment of these must 

 depend upon the punctual practice of virtues which 

 are more valuable than splendid. 



If I survived that crisis, it was owing to my wife's 

 admirable management of my household expenses. 

 She saw that our embarrassment was due to no 

 imprudence or neglect of mine. She thus con- 

 sented to severe privations, uttering no complaint, 

 hinting no reproach, never disheartened — and so 

 rarely out of humor that she never failed to welcome 

 my return with a smile. 



But in this country one convulsion follows an- 

 other with disheartening frequency. I lived through 

 that of 1S37, paid my debts, and had managed to 

 save some money. My wife's system of economy 

 had been so long adhered to, that in the end it 

 became to some extent habitual to her, and she still 

 continued to practice great frugality. I became 

 insensibly accustomed to it myself, and we thought 

 the skies had brightened for all future time. 

 When in difficulty, we had often debated the pro- 

 priety of quitting the city and its terrible business 

 trials, and settling on a few acres in the country, 

 where we could raise our own food, and spend the 

 remainder of our days in cultivating ground which 

 would be sure to yield us at least a respectable 

 subsistence. We had no longing for excessive 

 wealth; a mere competency, though earned by daily 

 toil, so that it was reasonably sure, and free from the 

 drag of continued indebtedness to others, was all we 

 coveted. 



I had always loved the country; but my wife pre- 

 ferred the city. I could take no step but such as 



108 



would be likely to promote her happiness. So long 

 as times continued fair, we ceased to canvass the 

 propriety of a removal. We had children to edu- 

 cate, and to her the city seemed the best and most 

 convenient place for qualifying them for future 

 usefulness. Then, most of our relations resided 

 near us. Our habits were eminently social. We 

 had made numerous friends, and among our neigh- 

 bors there had turned up many valuable families. 

 We felt even the thought of breaking away from all 

 these cordial ties to be a trying one. But the refuge- 

 of a removal to the country had taken strong hold 

 of my mind. 



Moderate Expectations 



INDEED it may be said that I was born with a 

 passion for living on a farm. It was fixed and 

 strengthened by my long experience of the business 

 vicissitudes of city life. For many years I had been a 

 constant subscriber for several agricultural journals 

 — whose contents I read as carefully as I did those 

 of the daily papers. I watched the reports of crops, 

 of experiments, and of profits. The leading idea in 

 my mind was this — that a man of ordinary indus- 

 try and intelligence, by choosing a proper location 

 within hourly reach of a great city market, could so- 

 cultivate a few acres as to insure a maintenance for 

 his family, free from the ruinous vibrations of trade 

 or commerce in the metropolis. All my reading 

 served to convince me of its soundness. I did not 

 assume that he could get rich on the few acres which 

 I ever [expected to own; but I felt assured that 

 he could place himself above want. My reading 

 had satisfied me ' that such a man would find ten 

 acres enough, and these I could certainly com- 

 mand. 



As I did not contemplate undertaking the man- 

 agement of a large grain farm, so my studies did not 

 run in that direction. Yet I read everything that 

 came before me in relation to such, and not without 

 profit. But I graduated my views to my means, 

 and so noted with the utmost care the experiences 

 of the small cultivators who farmed five to ten acres 

 thoroughly. I noted their failures as watchfully as 

 their successes. As opportunity offered, I made 

 repeated excursions, year after year, in every 

 direction around Philadelphia, visiting the small 

 farmers or truckers who supplied the city market 

 with fruit and vegetables, examining, inquiring, and 

 treasuring up all that I saw and heard. The fund 

 of knowledge thus acquired was not only prodigious, 

 but it has been of lasting value to me in my subse- 



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