Ten Acres Enough / A practical experience, showing how a very small farm may be made to keep a very large family

by Edmund Morris

But then we had neither gas nor hydrant water, those two prime luxuries of city life. Yet there was a pump in a deep well under a shed at the kitchen door, from which we drew water so cold as not at any time to need that other city luxury, ice. It was gratifying to see how expertly even the small children operated with the pump-handle. In a month we ceased to regret the hydrants. As to gas, we had the modern lamps, which give so clear a light not so convenient, it must be confessed, but then they did not cost us over half as much, neither did we sit up near so long at night. There were two mails from the city daily, and the newsboy threw the morning paper into the front door while we sat at breakfast. The evening paper came up from the city before we had supped. We had two daily mails from New York, besides a telegraph station. The baker served us twice a day with bread, when we needed it; the oysterman became a bore, he rang the bell so often; and the fish-wagon, with sea-fish packed in ice, directly from the shore, was within call as often as we desired, with fish as cheap and sound as any to be purchased in the city. Groceries and provisions from the stores cost no more than they did there, but they were no cheaper. But in the item of rent the saving was enormous,—really half enough, in my case, to keep a moderate family. Many’s the time, when sweating over the weeds, have I thought of this last heavy drain on the purse of the city toiler, and thanked Heaven that I had ceased to work for the landlord.

We had books as abundantly as aforetime, as we retained our share in the city library, and became subscribers to that in the adjoining town. It is true that the road in front of us was never thronged like Chestnut-street, but we neither sighed after the crowd nor missed its presence. We saw no flash of jewelry, nor heard the rustling of expensive silks, except the few which on particular occasions were sported within our own unostentatious domicil. Our entire wardrobes were manifestly on a scale less costly than ever. Our old city friends were apparently a great way off, but as they could reach us in an hour either by steamboat or rail, they quickly found us out. The relish of their society was heightened by distance and separation. In short, while far from being hermits, we were happy in ourselves. I think my wife became a perfectly happy woman—what it had been the great study of my wedded life to make her—the very sparkle and sunshine of the house. She possessed the magic secret of being contented under any circumstances. The current of my life had never been so dark and unpropitious, that the sunshine of her happy face, falling across its turbid course, failed to awake an answering gleam.

Speaking of visitors from abroad, I noticed that our city friends came to make their visits on the very hottest summer days, when, of all others, we were ourselves sufficiently exhausted by the heat, and were disposed to put up with as little cooking and in-door work as possible. But as such visitations were not exactly comfortable to the visited, so we could not see how they could be any more agreeable to the visitors. Yet they generally remarked, even when the mercury was up to ninety-five, “How much cooler it is in the country!” They did really enjoy either themselves or the heat. But my wife told them it was only the change of scene that made the weather tolerable, and that if they lived in the country they would soon discover it to be quite as hot as in the city. For my part, I bore the heat admirably, though tanned by the sun to the color of an aborigine; but I enjoyed the inexpressible luxury of going constantly in my shirt sleeves. I can hardly find words to describe the feeling of comfort which I enjoyed for full seven months out of the twelve from this little piece of latitudinarianism, the privilege of country life, but an unknown luxury in the city.

I saw that this press of company in the very hottest weather imposed an unpleasant burden on my wife, for she and my two oldest daughters were the sole caterers; and I intended to say something to her concerning it, as soon as a large party, then staying several days with us, should have concluded their visit. But on going into our chamber that very evening, she surprised me by asking if I could tell her why, when Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs, there was not a hired girl made at the same time, for to her mind it took three to make a pair—he, she, and a hired girl. I replied that I had not given much time to the study of navigation, but that I quite understood her meaning, and that it was exactly what I had myself been thinking of. If Adam’s rib, after producing Eve, had not held out to produce a hired girl also, I told her there was a much quicker way of getting what she wanted, and that the first morning paper she might pick up would produce her twenty hired girls.

In this way, before the summer was over, I procured her a servant, thus making her little establishment complete. For this luxury we paid city wages. But this was a small item, when I saw how much her presence relieved my wife. After that, I do not think she complained quite as much of the hot weather, nor was she inclined so frequently to repeat her former observation, that the sultry days always brought the most company. Indeed, I am certain that on one or two occasions, when the dog-days were terribly oppressive, she prevailed on different parties to prolong their stay for nearly a week.

Now, this taking on of Betty did not imply that my daughters were to be brought up to do nothing—or to do every thing that is fashionable imperfectly. My wife had already educated them in domestic duties—not merely to marry, to go off with husbands in a hurry, and afterwards from them. To the two eldest she had taught a trade, and they were both able to earn their salt. They could not only dress themselves, but knew how to make their dresses and bonnets, and all the clothing for the younger children. She cultivated in them all that was necessary in the position in which they were born, one thing at a time, but that thing in perfection; so that if parents were impoverished, or if in after-life reverses should overtake themselves, they might feel independent in the ability to earn their own support. She frowned upon the senseless rivalries of social life, as destructive of morals, mind, and health, and imbued their spirits with a devout veneration for holy things. She taught them no worship of the almighty dollar, but sound, practical economy, the art of saving the pieces. Surely it must be education alone which fills the world with two kinds of girls—one kind which appears best abroad, good for parties, rides, and visits, and whose chief delight is in such things—good, in fact, for little else. The other is the kind that appears best at home, graceful in the parlor, captivating in social intercourse, useful in the sick chamber as in the dining-room, and cheerful in all the precincts of home. They differ widely in character. One is often the family torment; the other the family blessing: one a moth consuming every thing about her; the other a sunbeam, inspiring life and gladness all along her pathway. As my wife embodied in herself all that to me appeared desirable in woman, so she possessed the faculty of transfusing her own virtues into the constitution of her daughters.

CHAPTER XIV.
TWO ACRES IN TRUCK—REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE.

I HAD one acre in tomatoes, a vegetable for whose production the soil of New Jersey is perhaps without a rival. The plants are started in hot-beds, where they flourish until all danger from frost disappears, when they are set out in the open air, with a generous shovel-full of well-rotted stable manure deposited under each plant. A moist day is preferred for this operation; but even without it this plant generally goes on growing. It has been observed that the oftener it is transplanted, the more quickly it matures; and as the great effort among growers is to be first in market, so some of them take pains to give it two transplantings. Having no hot-bed on my premises, and my time being fully occupied with other things, I was compelled to purchase plants from those who had them to spare, the cost of which is elsewhere stated. But the operation paid well.

The quantity produced by an acre of well-manured tomatoes is almost incredible. When in full bearing, the field seems to be perfectly red with them. Those which come first into market, even without being perfectly ripe, sell for sixpence apiece. So popular has this vegetable become, and so great is the profit realized by cultivating it, that for nearly twenty years it has been grown in large quantities by Jerseymen who emigrated to Virginia for the purpose of taking advantage of the earlier climate of that genial region. There they bought farms, improved them by using freely the unappropriated and unvalued stores of manure to be found in the vicinity, and produced whole cargoes of the choicest early vegetables required by the great consuming public of the northern cities. They shipped them hither two weeks ahead of all the Jersey truckers, and were rewarded by fabulous prices, from the receipt of which large fortunes resulted. This mutually advantageous traffic had become a very important one, when rebellion broke it up. Intercourse was stopped, cultivation was abandoned, and the Virginia truckers were ruined.

Although this competition seriously interfered with the profits of New Jersey farmers, yet it did not destroy them. The cultivation of early truck and fruit continued to pay, though not so well as formerly. When prices fell, the Southern growers could not afford the cost of delivery here, and thus left us in undisputed possession of the market. But, as a general rule, the Virginia competitors invariably obtained the highest prices. A great portion of their several crops, however, perished on their hands; because, as they had no market here when prices fell, so the scanty population around them afforded none at home.