TEN ACRES ENOUGH:
A PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE,
SHOWING
HOW A VERY SMALL FARM MAY BE MADE TO
KEEP A VERY LARGE FAMILY.
WITH
Extensive and Profitable Experience
IN
THE CULTIVATION OF THE SMALLER FRUITS.
EIGHTH EDITION.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER,
(SUCCESSOR TO C. S. FRANCIS & CO.,)
522 B R O A D W A Y.
MDCCCLXVI.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,
By JAMES MILLER,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
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.