Category: Humour

Five Acres Too Much A truthful elucidation of the attractions of the country, and a careful consideration of the question of profit and loss as involved in amateur farming, with much valuable advice and instruction to those about purchasing large or small places in the rural districts

Special Points about the Bovine Race.--Directions in Feeding.--Preparations to receive the Animal.--Her Arrival.--An awful Pause.--The Fray about to begin.--Intelligence of Cows and Biddies.--Victory.--A Calm.--Cow Complainings.--Approaching Storm.--A Tempest in a back Yard.--...

Chapters

23. CHAPTER II.

If there is any one thing on which I do pride myself more than another, it is my ability to plan and lay out a house. No matter how remarkable the shape of the lot may be, I can...

38. CHAPTER XVII.

The agricultural books all tell us that, at the close of the season, we should look back and review the work that we have accomplished, comparing it with previous results, or st...

41. CHAPTER XIX.

In describing the unfortunate termination of my efforts to winter our stock, I have advanced a little beyond the regular order of events. There was much other work to be done in...

22. CHAPTER I.

It was early in winter when I made up my mind finally to erect a country house on the Flushing five acres. Plans, and size, and arrangements were in the vague and misty future;...

37. CHAPTER XVI.

There is one advantage about the country that gives it a great superiority over the town. In it you have every thing so fresh--fresh vegetables, fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh po...

27. CHAPTER VI.

To the full enjoyment of a country house, there are few things more conducive than a large, well-filled kitchen garden. The farmers generally, with a wrong-headedness that is in...

24. CHAPTER III.

In order to live in the country, one must own a horse; in order to keep house in the country, one must own a pig. In popular estimation, the animal creation stand in relation to...

35. CHAPTER XIV.

My five acres at Flushing were located on the top of a hill called Monkey Hill; why so called I can not imagine, for there was never a monkey seen there since the earliest recol...

42. CHAPTER XX.

I have already mentioned the honesty of the people in Flushing. Nothing is more pleasant and satisfactory than to deal with persons on whom one can rely; to feel that one gets p...

43. CHAPTER XXI.

I am writing this supplementary chapter after the expiration of nearly fifteen years since the record of my farming experiences was commenced; and while I have nothing to take f...

28. CHAPTER VII.

The results of the effort to produce a kitchen garden out of the raw material of virgin sod was discussed in the last chapter. When it was well under way, and after Weeville had...

36. CHAPTER XV.

“Musquitoes! You’ll never be troubled with them. You may be surprised to hear it, but musquitoes at Flushing never come into the house. They will often be plenty outside, but th...

29. CHAPTER VIII.

I have a respect for chickens. The hens have the finest qualities of the most exemplary mothers; the cocks possess many of the characteristics, in courage and devotion to “the s...

31. CHAPTER X.

Now that we have finished our first year’s experience, and shown how readily a person can pass from the profession of a lawyer to that of an agriculturist, we come to the subjec...

30. CHAPTER IX.

The summer was pretty well over, and the various duties which accompany it accomplished after the manner already described; but there remained much to be performed as the cool w...

39. CHAPTER XVIII.

In the last chapter I have stated that so charming did the country seem to me, so pure its pleasures, and profitable its cultivation, that I resolved to remove there permanently...

21. CHAPTER XXI.

It was in consequence of reading a little volume called “Ten Acres Enough”--a practical and statistical, as well as, in certain points, a poetical production--that I came to pre...

26. CHAPTER V.

Some of the incidents connected with digging our well have already been referred to, but good water is so necessary to a country place that the mode of obtaining it deserves a s...

33. CHAPTER XII.

We now come to the second year. The house had been finished. It occupied a commanding position on the beautiful square that constituted my possessions, and, with the wind whistl...

25. CHAPTER IV.

A very large portion of every man’s life is expended in transporting himself from one place to another, and there are several modes of doing it. The most disagreeable and disgus...

34. CHAPTER XIII.

I had a high appreciation of the superiority of learning in cultivating the earth. Beside the dazzling statements of the brilliant writers on agriculture, the humdrum notions of...

32. CHAPTER XI.

“Well,” said Weeville one day, during the ensuing winter, as he dropped into my quiet office in the city, where I try to forget the charms and allurements of the country, and de...

40. did. Possibly scientific hot-house culture is not beneficial to weeds,

but until it perished of itself I had not the heart to dig it up, and thus put a violent end to so many vain hopes and promising anticipations. The _Verbena Barnwellii_ is still...

1. CHAPTER I.

Special Points about the Bovine Race.--Directions in Feeding.--Preparations to receive the Animal.--Her Arrival.--An awful Pause.--The Fray about to begin.--Intelligence of Cows...

2. CHAPTER II.

Wonderful architectural Genius of the Author.--He admires himself and consults his Friends.--Difficulties in obtaining “just the Thing.”--Want of Time.--Free Trade in Houses adv...

3. CHAPTER III.

Beauties of the Pig.--Defects of the Horse.--The dearest Pig and the dearest Horse, each in their way.--A haunted House, and the Effect of Ghosts on Horses.--The Ghost Story pre...

6. CHAPTER VI.

Advantages thereof.--Things to have.--You wish you may get them.--Ornamental as opposed to practical Views.--A dissolving View.--Bad Beginnings do not always make a good Ending....

17. CHAPTER XVII.

A second Year’s Balance-sheet.--Still greater Promises.--Success assured.--Every Man should be his own Market Gardener.--No dearth of Onions.--Transported at the Result.--The la...

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Butter-making in all its Attractions.--The Cream unequal to the Emergency.--Some Things can’t be Done as well as Others.--Electrical Phenomena.--Gathering Seed.--Incidental Refe...

20. CHAPTER XX.

A Rockaway stricken with Palsy.--Sudden Recovery.--Honesty of country Mechanics their best Recommendation.--A Roof over one’s Head.--Its Necessity, as well as Beauty.--A Fellow-...

9. CHAPTER IX.

A Fortune in Strawberries.--How to get it out.--Debility developed.--Science to the Rescue.--The wonderful Effects of a Liquid Fertilizer.--No Farmer should fail to have such a...

19. CHAPTER XIX.

A perfect Jonah.--Very fine, only don’t do it again.--A Gourd runs away with its Master.--A changeable Crimson.--A new Specimen of Flax, Red one Year and Yellow the next......266

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Strange Attack of Somnolency.--Dogs and Peppers as awakeners.--The right Thing in the wrong Place.--A Hen lays herself out.--Twenty pair of Chickens raise the Hair of one Mink.....

10. CHAPTER X.

5. CHAPTER V.

12. CHAPTER XII.

15. CHAPTER XV.

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

4. CHAPTER IV.

13. CHAPTER XIII.

7. CHAPTER VII.

14. CHAPTER XIV.

11. CHAPTER XI.