author

Edmund Morris

1804–1874

Best remembered for a lively 19th-century classic about small-scale farming, this practical writer turned personal experience into a book that inspired generations of would-be homesteaders. His work blends memoir, advice, and a strong belief that a modest piece of land could support family life.

1 Audiobook

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

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

by Edmund Morris

About the author

Born in 1804 and dying in 1874, Edmund Morris is chiefly known today as the author of Ten Acres Enough, a widely reprinted book about making a living from a small farm. Library and archive records connect him with that work and with later editions of Farming for Boys, showing his place in practical agricultural writing.

Ten Acres Enough, first published in the 1860s, presents Morris's own move away from city business life toward farming in New Jersey. The book mixes firsthand storytelling with down-to-earth advice on intensive cultivation, fruit growing, and the economics of small holdings, which helps explain why it stayed in print and found new readers long after his lifetime.

Reliable biographical detail on Morris himself is fairly limited in the sources I could confirm, so it is safest to remember him primarily through his books. Even so, his writing had lasting appeal because it made farming feel concrete, manageable, and hopeful rather than grand or abstract.