Farming Books

Cooking Fresh from the Mid-Atlantic continues the fine tradition
of Cooking Fresh from the Bay Area: fabulous recipes from fine restaurants and lots of info on where to find fresh ingredients.
Fresh food has become so rare, most of us have forgotten what it tastes like--until we are wowed by the genuine article.

I will use the Mid-Atlantic book to find restaurants on my upcoming trip to Washington, D.C.

What a treasure I have found! This book causes me to recall the days when I took my two small children to visit a nearby farm. I had lost that spirit of adventure and had forgotten the fun it is to leave the city and go to the farm for a morning in the open air next to the soil - where farmers are everyday. So it has rekindled my spirit and made me understand why local farmers remain true to the soil and their way of life. It is a great service to the community which the local farmers render - to avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides - to plant and
cultivate organically - to raise free-roaming livestock and poultry. Why did people in early Biblical times live so long? Well, pure air, water and soil must have been part of the answer.

Misses McManus and Rickard have done us a grand service to present a book that so beautifully and ably promotes eating for good health. At the same time we eat for good health we find superior flavor. They point out that we dine on foods with short supply lines and therefore those which can reach our tables only days and in some cases hours after being harvested; that is, when the produce is at its peak of flavor. We can savor it at the same time we are promoting health for our families and strengthening our local economy. Getting those lovely fruits and vegetables to the consumer is often done in farmer's markets where the selling is direct. The money stays with the local farmer and benefits the local economic community.

It is so nice not to have to subscribe to "Reminiscences" or to "The Good Old Days" to read about life on the farm. It still exists. You can go there, pick your own berries, gather your own tomatoes. Locally bought produce does not have to be gathered green and hard. It's supply line is short. How sweet it is as it appears on our table at the peak of it's flavor and nutritional effectiveness. Such luxuries as antibiotic-free livestock and free-roaming chickens are available through local growers. "Cooking Fresh from the Mid-Atlantic" is divided into seasonal sections so we can use the fruits and vegetables when they are in season.

When it becomes my good fortune to travel through the Mid-Atlantic states, I plan to carry this book with me. What a delightful guide it will be to locate the interesting restaurants and be able to have a consumer-friendly dining experience. I want to go back to 1789 in Washington, D.C. This time, I will have some "Winter squash and Savory Bread Pudding." I'm beginning to understand why my visits there have been such joyful experiences. The chef serves local organic fruits and vegetables. Some day, I am going to make my way to the Eastern Shore of Maryland for several reasons - one of which will be to have some "Oysters with Champagne Sauce" at 208 Talbot in St. Michaels.

A few nights ago I served "Shrimp with Garlic and Olive Oil" which is in the Spring Section. That one delighted my husband and our seven guests. There is hardly anything more heartwarming than to hear "Umm, this IS good."

The cover to "Cooking Fresh from the Mid-Atlantic has a very attractive picture of a pickle jar containing such an intriguing variety of food items. Furthermore, a happy revelation is that there are two books which preceded this one: "Eating Fresh from the Organic Garden State" (New Jersey) and "Cooking Fresh from the Bay area"(San Francisco). I don't find any other books that compare to these three. Each mouth-watering recipe is supplied by a chef from an outstanding restaurant. So, I just have to say, "Enjoy these recipes at home, and take the book with you when you travel."

Rachel Schulken

This is just one of the many "out of this world" recipes in this cook book. The fresh ingredients are key, which is why is certainly helps to follow the seasonal recommendations, but for food lovers, and those interested in where our food comes from, this book is magic!

I was excited when I saw this book in the Washington Post's Food Section and ordered it immediately but its not very good. Spend your money elsewhere.

Problems include:

1) It's way too preachy. There are many, many, essays that basically have the same themes: eat local produce and meats; small farms are good--large farms are evil; eat organic. Great, BUT if I bought a book about using local products then I probably buy into that already. I need more information less preaching.

2) The real information provided is too little and too disorganized. There are basically 6 pages with what's in season. One page each for Spring,Summer,Fall, and Winter, plus two pages in the back with the seasonal availability of some produce and meats. Very little information on how to get the most out of each season or what to look for when shopping for the best produce or meats.

3) The recipes. Mangos, Coconuts, and Vidalia Onions are not from the mid-atlantic but you'll find recipes in this book that feature these ingredients. Likewise, there may be a regional source for local prosciutto and Gorgonzola, but I think I'll keep buying mine from Italy.

"The Emergence of Agriculture" tells the story of the transition of mankind from a hunter-gatherer existence to agriculture. This transition took place about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East and more recently in the other six areas in which farming and herding are believed to have developed independently. Chapters cover early agriculture in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, East Asia, Middle and South America, and North America. The domestication of wheat, rice, corn, livestock and other crops are discussed.

This is a well-produced, well-illustrated book with good color maps, photos, charts, and graphs. Those familiar with "Scientific American" magazine will recognize the reader-friendly style and format. However, I would have to agree with other readers that the prose is somewhat flat. That being said there's enough good information here to deserve a top rating.

What I found most interesting about the book was the discussion of the development of crops no longer significant for agriculture such as Chenopodium (pigweed) in the Americas. Unrecognized by archaelogists as a crop for many decades, the cultivation of Chenopodium pushes the earliest date of agriculture and urbanization in the United States back to about 5,000 years ago. The author's description of the discovery of early agriculture in North America is vivid and personal because he was a participant in the investigation. Likewise, his description of the development of corn (maize) as a crop is very good.

The agricultural revolution was one of the most -- if not the most --important step forward in the development of civilization. This book does an excellent job examining how agriculture became a reality in several different civilizations around the world.

Smallchief

The beginnings of farming c. 10,000 years ago fundamentally changed human societies. Collaboration between archjaeologists and natural scientists has done a remarkable job in unravelling the where, when and whys of this story, but previous publications have concentrated on just or a few one regions. This is the first truly global survey of the domestication of plants and animals. It is up-to-date and well written and illustrated, and would be an excellent starting point for anyone interested in this topic. Readers should note that the paperback edition is substantially revised and is therefore preferable to the hardback, which still contains the original text.

Anyone who enjoys this book will also like Jared Diamond's Guns, germs and steel.

This colorful book uses a lot of information and statistical facts to bring the development of agriculture ot light in many regions of the world, even often forgot Africa. Plenty of pictures of the changes in plants and plenty of graphs and charts to help simplify all the information. A good over view of agriculture without getting into individuals findings on this day or that. A good read.

The book was a little slow going. The topic is probably not noted for its exciting appeal. I did enjoy the new information that it provided. The concept of an almost natural change from wild harvested to domesticated cultigen by virtue of an interface of plant and human needs rather than by conscious efforts on the part of the harvester was interesting. It almost made the process seem inevitable. The information regarding wild plant ancestors of modern domestics, the likely site of origin for and the path of spread of these plants were also interesting. For some reason I found the domestication process of animals somewhat less so. Overall I think the book would be best used as a resource for information rather than an afternoon read.

Speaking as a veterinarian, the combination of James Herriot's chronicles and the Farm Book gives one an accccurate and vivid portrayal of rural life.

The Farm Book is done wonderfully with great art. It will remind many people that have left the Netherlands and now live overseas, of the many small details of Dutch Farm life. The expressions on the faces of the typical Dutch farmers are rendered as only Rien could do it. Farms, animals, vegetation, it all is portrayed the way we used to see it around us, when living in that small country. Old farm tools can be seen as well. There is a variety of things all related to the old fashioned farm, and of course his text is humorous. This book is great!!!

I didn't really enjoy this book as some of Rien's other work. Don't get me wrong, it's still wonderful artwork, and a bargain at the price here. If you are like me and have to have ALL his books, by all means, get it. But if you are trying to choose between this one and some of his others, like Dogs or Life in Holland, pass on this book.

The Farm Book is done wonderfully with great art. It will remind many people that have left the Netherlands and now live overseas, of the many small details of Dutch Farm life. The expressions on the faces of the typical Dutch farmers are rendered as only Rien could do it. Farms, animals, vegetation, it all is portrayed the way we used to see it around us, when living in that small country. Old farm tools can be seen as well. There is a variety of things all related to the old fashioned farm, and of course his text is humorous. This book is great!!!

Cooper Jewett has never met his parents, and now after the death of his grandfather he's beginning to learn new things about his past, and is faced with important choices that will affect his future.

Maybe I'm too old to be in the targeted audience for this book, but I thought it was kind of cute, but I'll forget it in a few weeks after I read more exciting books.

First Boy by Gary Schmidt was a good book. It is exciting and I would recommend it to many teenagers. However, the only setback would be that the story has been told to many times. If you like the classic story of a boy who finds out he is famous, almost like in Harry Potter, then this book is for you. Although it is a common storyline, Schmidt can still make it interesting, and tells the story very well. He adds excitement and uses many aspects, such as the fact that the boy does not want to be famous, to make it more original. The book is fun because Cooper, the main character grew up as a farm child, and before his adventure had never left his home state of New Hampshire. Cooper just wants to be left alone on his farm but with the huge scandal around him it is very hard. It is fun to see the worlds of big-city politics and rural farms collide. Even though the predictable storyline, the book is fun and exciting.

Hearing simply the title and author of this book, readers would expect the story to be set in Washington D.C. among diplomats of sundry sort, laced with an adventure or two, as well as various forms of mischief, however, Gary Schmidt's adolescent novel First Boy, presents a rural teenage boy, Cooper Jewett, who grew up with his grandparents on a New Hampshire dairy farm, although the adventures and mischief are not lacking. Readers from all types of living will be struck by the contrast between the warm authenticity of the rural New Hampshire setting and the stark political scene evolving throughout the novel. This contrast drives the novel forward, propelling readers toward the surprising conclusion, entertaining readers all the while.
Cooper Jewett lives with his grandfather on a dairy farm, enjoying the camaraderie he shares with his grandfather, especially over the political scenes on the evening news, until one morning, he awakens to discover his grandfather has died during the night. Cooper is determined to keep his grandfather's dairy farm running, despite all odds: break-ins, a fire, and local police threatening to send him into foster care. And on top of all his responsibilities at home and school, Cooper is sought out by the President of the United States and a senator running against the President in the next election, who, in a desperate attempt to beat the steal election votes from the President, is seeking "dirty laundry" from the President's past. Cooper refuses to help the senator's campaign because his grandfather thought that the senator was not trustworthy, so out of desperation, they capture him and try to use him as a visual in a speech, but Cooper, through various forms of trickery, escapes his captors several times, with the assistance of a few kindhearted neighbors. It is then that Cooper discovers the shocking truth about his parents, grandparents, and his own identity.
Firstly, the character of Cooper is that of the average, small town, fourteen-year-old boy, though with the determination of someone three times his age. Through various events that would drive any normal person into hiding, Cooper's unwavering will shines brightly, as he stands firm on his promise to remain on the farm, and steadfast to his grandfather's morals and beliefs about politics and humankind. Cooper's resolve is admirable, enviable even.
In contrast, Senator Wickham represents all that is evil and detritus to family values. By trying to use a small boy for political gain, he creates an image for himself that not many people would want to claim. The sly, underhanded tricks he uses in order to manipulate Cooper fall flat in the face of Cooper's determination, and he only succeeds in making himself look like a worse candidate for the presidency.
Through the contrast between Cooper's innate goodness and Senator Wickham's inherent evil, readers a shown a clear image of what is to be valued: family and devotion. In this story, through the frequent dramatic upsets, readers are given the opportunity to judge for themselves what qualities are more admirable, as both sides take turns "winning" the battle, though in the end it is clear that good will triumph yet again.

"But it's hard to stay angry while leaning against the flank of a cow. Cooper liked milking. He liked the work of the hoses and the swish of the thick blue-white milk coming through them. Most especially, he liked tending Moon and Star, who didn't care to be milked by machine, thank you."

I'm old enough to remember flying kites over expansive cow pastures on Manetto Hill Road, in Plainview, Long Island. But that, and the glass bottles of milk that were delivered to the front stoop by the milk man, were pretty much as close to cows as I came while growing up in the suburbs.

I remember listening to my sister Elaine once, after she'd read and re-read MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE. She must have been ten at the time, hanging out on a Saturday afternoon in Peggy Dean's backyard, solemnly listing for Peggy all the animals she was going to have on the farm she'd acquire when she was grown up. I recall quite vividly overhearing that conversation, as the idea of living on a farm seemed so exotic to me at the time.

It's fascinating to recall that afternoon now, having spent the latter half of my life (so far), living with a herd of dairy goats, fenced pastures, and the relatively open and rolling expanses that are so different from the confines of the fifty-by-hundred lot in Plainview and the fenced quarter-acre in Commack on which I grew up.

"Through Geometry he thought about filling the grain bins from the sacks he had carried in that morning. And after he got home from freshman cross, there would be the Orchard to mow. And there was still some splitting for this winter's woodpile--he was behind on that--and more hay to haul to the barn loft. And that top porch step to fix.
"He thought about the chores through every class and wondered how much he was missing what his grandfather used to do without saying anything about it. It worried him through World Cultures, where he found it hard to care much about Ancient Egyptian Trade Routes. And it worried him through English, where he couldn't muster up much concern for whether Beatrice served God, loved Benedick, and mended or not. But the ending of the play, when the prince was left all alone--that had something to it. He knew what that was about."

Fifteen year-old Cooper Jewett is feeling very alone after his grandfather dies. It has just been the two of them living on the New Lincoln, New Hampshire dairy farm for those years after his grandmother had passed away; so different from his buddy Peter Hurd, whose family was so large "they could almost field both sides of a baseball game." He loves the farm with all his heart, and is determined to stay on it, but after the first few days alone he seems about ready to drown in a bottomless pit of daily work, despite the assistance of the neighbors: Mrs. Perley, from up the hill, and a fellow farmer, Mr. Searle.

"As for homework: If Mrs. Perley hadn't brought his backpack in from the front porch, he would have forgotten he'd left it there. Not that it would have made much difference. He went up to his room with it but never opened it that night. Geometry theorems went unproved, Ancient Egyptian Trade Routes went unmapped, and Benedick's blank verse went unscanned.
"Cooper slept without moving all night long.
"And when he woke up in the morning, there wasn't even a moment when he didn't remember that he had to do it ALL OVER AGAIN."

Gary Schmidt captures both the natural beauty and down-to-earth reality of life on the farm in a way that I've never before had the pleasure of reading. I just love watching Cooper take one last walk through the barn before bedtime, making sure to gently pat each and every cow nose goodnight.

But that is only the beginning of what Schmidt sows in FIRST BOY, a satire in which he deftly intersperses community secrets and national political intrigue with (real) traditional values and gentle, folksy humor (a la Garrison Keillor) that pokes fun at the various religious denominations and makes frequent references to well-baked pies.

Especially notable amidst the craziness is the hero who emerges, Mrs. Perley, the retired teacher:

" 'They'll be arranging for someone to pick you up. It's for your own good.'
" 'Cooper is fine where he is,' said Mrs. Perley. "Now the sheriff came around his desk. His hands were clenching and unclenching like a gunfighter in an old Western.
" 'Neither of you has any idea what you're mixed up in,' he said, and it was as if his voice had become as cold as Fright. 'Not a single idea.' He looked hard at Cooper. 'Life isn't always what you expect it to be. Sometimes it can be full of surprises.'
" 'I've seen surprises,' said Cooper. 'I'll make due.'
"Mrs. Perley put an arm around him.
" 'We'll see how long that lasts.' Sheriff Gibbs turned back to Mrs. Perley. 'And maybe you'd better stay up in your own house. This isn't New Lincoln Elementary anymore.'
" 'Do not begin a sentence with a conjunction, Raymond. It is grammatically improper,' said Mrs. Perley.
"Sheriff Gibbs went back around his desk. 'Thank you for the visit,' he said. 'I'll be sure to type up a report and get right on the case--Raging Birth Certificate Thief on the Loose.' He sat down and put his feet up on the desk again. He rubbed his chin and clasped his hands on his belly, over which there was a lot to clasp. 'New Lincoln police, always at your service,' he said.
"Outside the sheriff's office, Mrs. Perley stood by her Plymouth with her key in her hand. 'He certainly is a most unpleasant man--as helpful as a thunderstorm during a Sunday School picnic. What does he mean by accusing you of making up the entire story?' She spoke more and more quickly and waved the key at Cooper. 'What did he mean by that? And how did he know about the black sedan? Drat!' She punched her hand into the air. 'See how upset he has made me? I've begun a sentence with a conjunction myself. And he's made me say drat. Oh, and there I go again with another conjunction.'
" 'I won't ever tell,' said Cooper.
" 'Thank you. And drat that man anyway.' "

Having spent a quarter century milking Nubian dairy goats myself, what impressed me above all about FIRST BOY is that while there is so much going on in this zany tale, Cooper Jewett never once fails to register that it is milking time.

I can only add to what the three previous reviewers have said in praise of this book. I make my living through irrigated agriculture, and so am intimately involved in the myriad of issues surrounding the survival of these incredible creatures. Dr. Montgomery's book is a good introduction to basic salmonid biology (a topic most of the public, including "activists" are shockingly ignorant of), is blessedly free from jargon and acronyms, and recounts the sad history of our interactions with this fish without didactic and self-righteous screaming.

I read this book with great interest and I am saddened by what I learned. I was raised in a town on the Columbia River and as a young fisherman, heard stories of large historic Salmon runs described in near myth-like terms. Back then I was taught to blame the tribes, gill netters and other commercial fisherman for the diminished runs. If only the problem were that simple. As Montgomery clearly describes, through an interesting comparative analsis, Salmon runs have historically been driven into extinction, first in Europe, then England, then New England, and now the Pacific Northwest in more or less the same fashion. As the areas around native salmon waters became populated and developed, our society has made certain choices, economic v. environmental, which not surpisingly have nearly always favored the economic. As a result, salmon runs were decimated by the construction of dams, overfishing, pollution, misguided hatchery programs, the clearing and diking of streams, destruction of wetlands, logging practices, and simply by population growth and development, which Montgomery describes as a death by a thousand cuts. Presently, salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest are at just 6-7% of their historical numbers. As the region's population is expected to double within this generation, conditions will likely only get worse. While Montgomery identifies steps than can be taken to revive these runs, it seems doubtful there is enough public sentiment or political will to effect these changes. If anything, this books is a sad commentary on our society's ability to manage its resources. Salmon, which are a symbol of the great Pacific Northwest, will soon be gone for good.

Montgomery's book is centered on the notion that we are failing to learn from history when it comes to the Pacific salmon crisis. In England, eastern North America, and now the Pacific Northwest, human actions that inevitably destroy the "king of fish" have been repeated. Overfishing, blocking salmon from their spawning habitat, and causing the deterioration of habitat quality through pollution, land clearing, and simplification of the river are the culprits. Montgomery also tells why hatcheries are not the solution and never have been. He closes with a clear and, to me, indisputable analysis of what we must do to preserve and recover this most amazing of creatures. The book is quite accessible to a layperson; you don't need a scientific background, or even any knowledge of the problems facing Pacific salmon, in order to enjoy and learn from the book.

Dr. Montgomery shows that if the toxic and human waste poured into the rivers of the industrial revolution did not poison Salmon, the incipient capitalist institution of commercial fishing would swallow most of them.. Montgomery quotes records from the holder of fishing rights on a specific part of the Thames river. The records of this particular holder shows he caught 66 salmon in 1801, 18 in 1812 and only 2 in 1821....by the 1960's, the annual salmon catch of England and Wales was a quarter of that a century earlier. He quotes an account of MP Robert Wallace about parliament blocking effective salmon protection laws at the behest of the commercial fishing industry, dam operators, etc.

He quotes accounts from the early 19th century including from Henry David Thoreau about the severe depletion of salmon stocks in Northeast U.S. rivers caused by the disruption of salmon spawning beds by the transportion of boats and logs down the river, dams, factory poisons and so on.

Salmon stocks continued to decline to near extinction in Eastern U.S. waters. The Danish government agreed to ban its fisherman from engaging in their highly destructive open ocean fishing off the coast of Greenland, where salmon from Britain, the U.S, and Canada often converge for their sojourns in the Ocean, in 1972. However Danes continued to fish heavily near the Greenland shore, and used vessels under other nation's flags to circumvent their salmon catch quota under the 1972 agreement.

Montgomery shows how salmon have been sacrificed since the Great Depression in favor of the dams which have provided water and electricity in the Eastern Pacific Northwest from the Snake and Colombia Rivers. In 1937, U.S. fisheries commissioner Franklin Bell let it be known that he wasn't going to strain himself too much on behalf of the Salmon. "Aside from blind restriction" of commercial fishing, he explained, "the protection of individual runs menaced by virtual extinction must be left to chance."

Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest thrived on salmon for subsistence, and to preserve the run, would commonly allow half of the run to pass through its nets. But with the coming of commercial fishing dominated by whites, Indian livelihood was wiped out. They could not compete in commercial fishing, lacking the wealth to purchase the sophisticated boats and nets increasingly becoming common. Indians became a racist scapegoat for the depletion of salmon stocks. He notes He notes though that state records that the entire Indian fishing catch from 1935 to 1950 was less than the total commercial catch during a typical year.

Washington State had always claimed that on traditional Indian fishing grounds based on treaties made regarding Colombian basin rivers in the 1850's, Indians merely had the same rights as whites to exploit salmon. But in 1970, federal district court judge George Boldt ruled that the treaties actually reserved for Indians half of the annual salmon supply. In 1975, the Supreme Court upheld Boldt's decision. In 1980, Federal Judge William Orrick declared that under the old treaties, maintaining decent habitat for salmon spawning fell to Washington state. Shortly thereafter a three-judge panel of the 9th circuit overturned the decision. The issue of maintaining the habitat has not been resolved. He points out that native Americans have not been given "special rights" in fishing, as white fisherman and the demagogues inflaming them have claimed but the treaties, signed as they were under pressure, were grants by the Indians to the White man on the Indian's land. Not grants by the white man to the Indian.

, Hatcheries were promoted as the catchall solution to salmon shortages. Huge investments were made in this new technology by Washington and Oregon governments beginning the late 19th century. However, writes Montgomery, in the long term, hatcheries have clearly failed. Salmon cannot simply adapt to any stream or river. They seem genetically programmed to operate in limited regions. Hatcheries salmon are selected from a very limited gene pool i.e. lack of genetic diversity and can produce defective offspring with their wild brethren. The hatchery salmon are found to be much more aggressive than their wild counterparts in eating up the food supply, thus making the wild ones lose out in the survival of the fittest. In particular hatchery fish, can introduce deadly diseases to their wild brethren. In the mid-70's a parasite from hatchery fish wiped out restored wild salmon stocks in Norwegian rivers.
By the early 1990's, while the Colombia river held an estimated 11 to 16 million salmon before the arrival of Europeans, by then it had dwindled to around 2 million wild fish. Yet the number of hatchery fish in the river was estimated at the time to be around a hundred million.

Likewise, on the East coast, salmon produced in "farms" i.e. maintained in cages at sea, sometimes accounted for the majority of spawning salmon in a river. An estimate of the National Research Council declares that 180,000 fish a year escape from their farms in Maine. They spread disease to wild salmon and mate with them, creating large numbers of genetically limited salmon. According to Montgomery, those 180,000 fish are ten times the number of wild salmon left in New England. In Europe, he notes, the amount of farm salmon being produced was 100 times the catch of wild salmon.

He advocates strictly enforced moratoriums on fishing, increased preservations of wetlands to allow for the creation of flood produced salmon-friendly side-channels, strictly enforced regulations on placing passageways for salmon in dams, regulations to prevent salmon waterways from being polluted and to make sure that salmon do not end up as carcasses on farmland after being swallowed through irrigation pumps. The economic actors involved continue to block serious efforts to protect the salmon as they always have. He notes how the Bush administration has blocked efforts to address over-fishing.

Regardless of one person's opinion about this book being dry, it is considered one of the best tried and true permaculture manuals out there. The illustrations are funny and poignant and the information accessible and aplicable to a modern world.
Also be sure to check out the forthcoming "Food Not Lawns" by Heather Coburn due out next Summer. It is sure to be among the best-ever urban gardening books.

I read this book about a year ago so I can't be too detailed. But I appreciated this accessible introduction to the entire field of permaculture as a philosophy. Not just focused on farm or landscaping design, Bell explicates deeper community design and planning that mollison usually just suggests in passing. Particularily interesting was his discussion of Community centered currency and exchange programs like BREAD in Berkeley

This being my first text on Permaculture, I was hoping to be awed and enthused after reading. Rather, I was a bit tired and dreary eyed. The book does contain many useful and convincing ideas. It also seems to have the depth of research I like in a text. Yet I could not wait to put the book down. It's common sense approach, not the revolutionary style I had come to link with Permaculture, left me wondering why I ordered it and if there is another trext more inspiring...

Look further before buying.

What is permaculture? Permaculture is a way of life; it makes maximum use of resources by minimizing waste and maximizing potential; it is a tool for planet-repair; it is a way of creating wealth without causing environmental damage; it is about meeting our own needs without making the lives of other less pleasant; it is about limiting personal consumption but gaining more than you lose; it is about using technology when it is the best way to accomplish a task; it is developing interdependence with the community rather than self-sufficiency; it is about reducing the work required to meet a given end; it is about giving each of us the power to influence the world from our own home. Permaculture is not about getting away from it all but taking control of our lives where we are. It is a concept and a practice with global implications because it is possible under any culture, in any climate and by people with any skills. Permacultue invites you to take care of yourself, your family and your immediate community, and to care for your neighbors in the widest possible sense, all around the globe. Permaculture is based on sound economics while making our lives more harmonious with the needs of the planet.

Put in its simplest terms, permaculture asks people to put as much into life as they demand from it; but it starts with each individual because that is what is immediate and within our control and because only we have the power to affect the future by acting creatively for the good of ourselves and others. Permaculture starts in the home because that is the central point in time and space from which all daily occupations radiate. Designing the home to supply much of its own needs and to consume its own outputs would be a massive contribution to global cleansing. Thoreau, in his book 'Walden' reviews his two-year experiment in simple living as a counter to industrialization and commerce that have driven people into virtual slavery. His remedy was to concentrate on simple requirements to free up time and energy for our spiritual needs. Our house should provide health for the family, peace for the spirit and harmony with the environment - and that is what permaculture strives to attain. Think globally but act locally is a slogan that reminds us, not just of our duty, but of our personal ability to affect change for the better. Permaculture is best expressed in your own garden because gardening exhibits all the qualities of planet-care - it is small scale, local, ethical, and a personal responsibility that brings together all strands of our relationship with nature; it is a common bond between families throughout the world. Permaculture is best expressed through the individual because leadership is so vital to building a better world. Every parent is a leader; every adult and every child can become a leader. All it requires is to do something when you see something that needs doing and that something may be as simple as creating a garden along the lines described in this book.

This book shows us how to meet our basic needs while leaving the earth richer; it helps us to relearn the value of nature; it helps us to understand new ways of being wealthy; it helps us to create a productive lifestyle without causing environmental damage. Although the specifics of this book are for the British Isles, the principles and philosophies are universal. At present, the earth cannot keep up with our rate of production and consumption. We must deepen our understanding of the land and our relationship to it. This doesn't mean that we all have to become peasant or subsistence farmers; permaculture seeks more rewarding paths to paradise. This book helps us to design our lives efficiently, not just to feed and clothe ourselves better but to take as little as possible of the earth's space for the production of those needs; to do as little damage as possible to the environment and whenever possible to return as much as possible to nature.

David Bellamy starts his preface with these words. "I have four books in my library which form the cornerstones of my hope for the future: Marcus Porcius Cato's 'Treatise on Agriculture' (about 160 AD); Robert Sharrock's 'History of the Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature' (1660); Hans Jenny's 'The Soil Resource' (1980); and Bill Mollison's 'permaculture' (1988). I can now add this book to the collection, for it is of great importance. This is a spring-board text, which relaunches the wisdom of almost twenty centuries into the arena where it is most needed and from which it can be most effective - the rich countries of the temperate world."

At the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit for Sustainable Development, one resolution was to declare a Decade for Education on Sustainable Development starting in 2005. We must now start thinking about what should be included in the new curriculum. Permaculture should definitely be included. If you want to move away from the consumerist lifestyle; if you want to live by more enduring values; if you are looking for answers to the question 'What can I do about curing our world?'; if you are looking for ways to improve your health and to live more harmoniously with nature; if you agree with Edmund Burke that "for the triumph of evil it is only necessary that good men do nothing"; then this well may be the book you have been looking for. This book should be in the library of everyone interested in building a better world.

Despite being laced with annoying typos (this is from Cambridge Univ. Press?), I found the substance of the book to be most informative. The slave-labor sugar/cotton/tobacco plantation is a familar feature of early modern history, and is usually encountered in regional histories of, say, the Caribbean, or Brazil, or the United States. But this book traces the "plantation complex" from its beginnings in the eastern Mediterranean, on Cyprus, through its spread across the Atlantic, and its final last gasps in this century. People who are used to thinking of "slave plantations" exclusively in the context of the United States will be disappointed. For reasons explained by the author, his primary focus is on the sugar plantations of the New World--these tended to be purer examples of the phenomenon. He also spends a good deal of time analyzing the impact on African societies and economies; material which I found especially instructive. The account of the stepwise demise of slavery in Brazil was also very enlightening, especially how emancipation became an economic opportunity for entire classes of slaveholding plantation owners in the 1870's, similar to "mass layoffs" today. I think this book is crucial to understanding where the "New World" stands today--racially, economically and socially. You just have to ignore the typos.

This book is a collection of essays in which Philip Curtin integrates the plantation complex into the larger story of world history. According to Curtin, "The plantation complex was an economic and political order centering on slave plantations in the New World tropics" (xi). Curtin groups the essays in this book into four sections; each roughly dealing with a different century between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century. The book is not written in a strict narrative style, but as the title of the book suggests, it traces the plantation complex from its origins to its fall.

Curtin's book is a useful and accessible work of world history. It gives a holistic view of the plantation complex, looking at the issues involved from multiple viewpoints. This method enables the reader to place the plantation complex within the world instead of seeing it as a world unto itself. The sugar industry's production, labor, and capital all originated on different continents, making the industry at this time a truly global system.

My strongest disappointment with this book is that though it is fairly balanced, Curtin deemphasizes the American South too much. For demographic reasons, he relegates the American South to the periphery instead of the complex proper. For example, he notes that in the plantation complex, slaves composed the vast majority of the population, whereas in the American South, slaves, though numerous, were a small minority. However, even though the colonies of the American South should not be considered part of the plantation complex, perhaps it would be better to view pieces of the plantation complex as being embedded within those colonies. The entire colony of South Carolina did not resemble the Caribbean colonies, but many plantations in South Carolina resembled the Caribbean colonies more than they resembled the rest of South Carolina.

Despite being laced with annoying typos (this is from Cambridge Univ. Press?), I found the substance of the book to be most informative. The slave-labor sugar/cotton/tobacco plantation is a familar feature of early modern history, and is usually encountered in regional histories of, say, the Caribbean, or Brazil, or the United States. But this book traces the "plantation complex" from its beginnings in the eastern Mediterranean, on Cyprus, through its spread across the Atlantic, to its final last gasps in this century. People who are used to thinking of "slave plantations" exclusively in the context of the United States will be disappointed. For reasons explained by the author, his primary focus is on the sugar plantations of the New World--these tended to be purer examples of the phenomenon. He also spends a good deal of time analyzing the impact on African societies and economies; material which I found especially instructive. The account of the stepwise demise of slavery in Brazil was also very enlightening, especially how emancipation became an economic opportunity for entire classes of slaveholding plantation owners in the 1870's, similar to "mass layoffs" today. I think this book is crucial to understanding where the "New World" stands today--racially, economically and socially. You just have to ignore the typos.

In a way I shudder at the idea of reviewing a book like Philip D. Curtin's "The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History" for the simple fact that a book containing fourteen detailed essays is daunting to summarize. Which essay should receive the most attention? The reviewer of Curtin's book soon realizes that such a question does not have an easy answer. Nearly all of the articles contained in this slim volume warrant far more attention than I can give them in a 1000 word review. I'll have to resort to sweeping generalization in the main, most likely, but that's acceptable considering the focus of these writings deals with a sweeping topic. Atlantic history is metahistory, encompassing as it does some three or four hundred years and stretching through Europe, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and North America. It is also a story filled with tales of exploration, greed, bondage, and freedom. Atlantic history is a hot topic from what I've gathered, what with books like Marcus Rediker's "The Many Headed Hydra" gaining quite a lot of attention in the academic world. Then again, maybe I think it's a pressing subject since I've read several books on the theme for a class at school.

Curtin focuses on the rise and spread of the plantation complex, which he calls an "entity," beginning with the discovery of sugar in the Mediterranean during the time of the Crusades. Located primarily on the island of Cyprus, Europeans harvested sugar there for roughly two hundred years. With the reconquest of the Levant by Muslims, growers and consumers sought out new sources of the product. Enter the slow move into the New World and the introduction of a plantation structure that was feudalistic in nature, relied on slave labor, and was controlled by a political system overseas. The "true" plantation existed solely for profit, for supplying goods for distant markets, and needed slaves to operate the fields because the European populations had not yet overcome the numerous diseases and hardships found in the harsh climes of South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Had Europeans merely waited until they built up immunity to diseases, argues Curtin, it's quite possible slavery as we recognize it today might never have existed. He also posits the interesting observation that plantations in the American South were not "true" plantations and as such receive little mention in his articles. He's more interested in the large European concerns spreading like a plague through South America and the Caribbean.

Curtin doesn't solely examine the structure of the plantation, although he does spend some time discussing the geography of a typical sugar plantation, the types of buildings found there, how the goods went to market, and how the same forms adapted to different climates. He throws in a detailed examination of the African slave trade, how it arose, who participated in it (both Europeans and Africans readily engaged in the selling of human beings), and argues that the decline and fall of powerful African states led to an increase in the number of people available for the slave markets. The author also argues that the plantation, no matter what its location, represented a form of "cultural demography" in that the Europeans who built them moved into a region and supplanted the local population (most of them died) with non-native inhabitants. The racial and social composition of our world today is largely a result of the plantation system and the demographic changes it wrought. It's an amazing claim and one that, if accepted, equals in importance the barbarian migrations that rocked the Roman world in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Curtin postulates some theories to help explain the demise of the plantation complex, too. He contends that the democratic revolutions in the New World and Europe put an end to these exploitative economic enterprises, primarily the series of rebellions that resulted in an independent Haitian state in 1804 but also including the American and French Revolutions. Even moderate attempts at democratization in England helped bring about the abolishment of slavery (remember, American plantations don't count) and thus sealed the plantation complex's doom. Also lending a hand was the emergence of the European Enlightenment, which tended to look at non-western lands and people as "exotic," a view that planted the seeds for later anti-slavery movements and increased attention to what was going on in the mother country's backwaters. By the 1880s Brazil was freeing slaves to SAVE money because droughts and laws aimed at preventing the importation of new slaves decreased their value to the point that it was too expensive to keep them around.

"The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex" makes abundant use of detailed maps and graphs, something that, as incredible as it sounds, many history books fail to do. I did have two quibbles with the book. The first is the atrocious editing, or should I say lack of editing, that plagues nearly every page of this book. Errors are so numerous that the flow of the text is seriously hampered. And none other than Cambridge University Press published it! My second problem centers on Curtin's complaints about "Eurocentric" history and how historians ought to look beyond that bias. That might have been a problem in 1990 when the book first appeared, but even a cursory glance at the history section in the local bookstore today will reveal dozens of titles written from a decidedly non-European point of view. Despite these niggling problems, Curtin's book is a good read for both historians and interested laypersons (laypeople?) intrigued by the subject.

I originally got 'Raising Horses', from the library. My daughter's horse had a 'baby'(our first). This book held so much, and such great information that my family decided to order this book and 'Training Horses', both by Heather Smith Thomas. I highly recommend Ms Thomas books to anyone, at any horse knowledge level.

Out of all the horse care books I have read.. This one is very clear and covers most every area in raising horses. Anyone looking for a good horse care book, this one is the best I have found. I have other horse care books but I refer to this one the most.

Has everything you'll need to take care of horses effectively. Many useful pictures too.

I have owned, raised, and trained my own horses from a very young age and even though I already know the basics, I found this book to be very useful. From basic horse keeping to in depth descriptions of many equine health problems, this book is one that even the experienced rider and horse owner should have. It contains fabulous drawings and seperates each sections accordingly. I have not found a basic question that this book couldn't answer. It is a must have for any horseman.

We hear a lot these days about global warming, the West's over consumption habits, and how oil is getting more and more expensive and less available. We also hear a lot about alternative energies, flex-fuel cars, ethanol, and the like, but how many of us really know what these alternatives mean - both for the environment and our wallets. Unless you are a scientist working in the field, often we have to rely on what the media tells us; and many of us don't trust the media for a straight forward, objective opinion. Big oil, with their record profits, try and keep us in the dark about other forms of energy. Good thing I stumbled upon the book Sustainable Ethanol by the Goettemoeller brothers. This is the first book I have seen that explains the science - and logic - behind ethanol as an alternative fuel to oil and gas in a clear, readable, and informative style.

Not only do they cover the history of ethanol fuel (did you know the first cars were designed to run on ethanol, not gasoline), but they go into what the latest scientific studies prove - that ethanol is a viable alternative fuel not only for cars, but also for other forms of energy such as natural gas. This latter point is further developed in the book when the Goettemoeller brothers delve into biogas and butanol - two other alternative energies that can be derived from natural resources (such as landfills, manure, and agricultural waste).

Chapters include: A brief history of ethanol fuel; Will cheap oil return?; Economic and security benefits; Environmental impact; E10, E85, and flex-fuel vehicles; Improving fuel economy on ethanol; Food, farming, and land use; Ethanol production; Cellulosic ethanol; Energy balance: Is ethanol renewable?; and Facing our energy future.

Some highlights of the book include:

In 2006 the ethanol industry contributed $23.1 billion to our Gross Domestic Product, created 163,034 new jobs, $2.7 billion in federal tax revenue, $2.2 billion in state tax revenue, and reduced our need for foreign oil imports by 206 million barrels.

If car manufacturers optimized their flex-fuel vehicles to run on E85 (85% denatured alcohol and 15% gasoline), not only would the fuel economy be the same as straight gasoline, but a significant reduction in pollution would occur because ethanol has fewer highly volatile components (i.e., lower carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide).

Ethanol production is not limited to just corn: grain sorghum, wheat, barley, agricultural residues, forestry wastes, municipal solid wastes, food processing and other industrial wastes, and various grasses can all be used to make ethanol.

Ethanol can be made via a "closed loop" system, whereby the grain used to make the ethanol can then be feed back to the animals (as ethanol production only uses the starch from grains, not the proteins or vitamins), the manure from the animals is then used to create fertilizer (for more grain) and biogas which is used as a process fuel in place of natural gas. In a sense, no external energy is required to go into the process, creating a sustainable energy production process.

Sustainable Ethanol is copiously documented, with charts and graphs illustrating the complex science that is clearly explained. This book should be on everyone's reading list who cares about the environment and our future. Rarely does one get to read about an emerging technology and actually understand at the end what that technology is, how it works, and just how important it can be for helping save the planet. The Goettemoeller brothers have succeeded beyond any expectations in this regard. Sustainable Ethanol is a landmark book - if you want to see what you can do to help save the planet, then this book is a must.

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New Great Books
[...]

This is a book that is helpful for people of all educational levels to begin to understand not only Ethanol, but the who Biofuels industry.

The conciseness of the information into what can be considered bullet points delivers the maximum information in the least space possible. This leaves no room for agenda driven diatribes present in most books today. In addition, the book provides an abundance of cited sources that can be used by the reader for additional research and, thus, does not choke the book with needless facts and information.

The best part is that, for us who think Ethanol is only one piece in the complete Biofuels puzzle, much of the information can be applied to other Biofuels like methanol and butanol.

For me this book is not only a primer, but a reference source for the future.

This book is truly a crash course on the subject. The Goettemoeller brothers present a brief but very comprehensive account of the ethanol evolution, beginning with a concise history of the oil and ethanol industries, through farm subsidies, the economics, environmental impact, greenhouse gases, ethanol and world hunger, all the flex-fuel vehicles available (E10, E85, E100 and the Brazilian full flex-fuel vehicles), improving fuel efficiency, ethanol production from several crops, the energy balance, to close with a discussion about a key question, is ethanol renewable? All of it in just less than 200 pages, not surprisingly the book reads fast, the facts are presented almost like bullets, with web addresses and references for easy follow-up.

The successful Brazilian experience is also presented, explaining the 30 year process that led to this country's leadership in farming productivity, ethanol fuel production and distribution, and the development and manufacturing of full flex-fuel vehicles, with the same sales price as E-10 cars. And all of these achievements without government subsidies, or sacrificing food production, and even with a sharp increase in grain and food exports thanks to China's voracious appetite for commodities. The authors also debunk the deforestation myth. Sugar cane is produced mainly in São Paulo state, some 2,500 Km away from the Amazon forest, in areas previously used for farming, and the entire state's area is just 3% of Brazil's territory. Whenever possible, a comparison with the U.S experience is presented, and key differences are highlighted, such as Brazil's superior productivity rates in farming sugar cane.

My only disappointment with the book is that the Brazilian case is not presented with the same depth as the American experience; instead, information about Brazil is spread throughout the book in very short paragraphs, and based mainly on interviews with Brazilian English-speaking executives. It seems the language barrier hindered a deeper coverage of this successful story. That's why I did not give the book the five stars. And incidentally, the book does not mention the fact that today the price of hydrated ethanol (Brazil's biofuel) is around 30% cheaper than standard gasoline, more than enough to fully compensate for the lower energy content in ethanol, and thanks to the fully flexible fuel technology, auto users are free to choose the proportion of each fuel depending on market prices. Tipically, between sugar cane harvest seasons, you simply go back to gasoline.

As oil approaches US$ 120 per barrel, and as the oil industry and OPEC countries are ironically echoing the concerns of some international bureaucrats and environmental groups (yes, the same supporting the Global Warming cause!) regarding the alleged responsibility of ethanol production for the recent increases in food prices, I think this is a book you definitively should read before taking sides on the food versus biofuels controversy.

The problem is complex; there are several causes, and agricultural subsidies in rich countries are chief among them, in particular when highly subsidized corn crops for ethanol production became more profitable than producing other cash crops for food. This subject is out of the scope of the book, but if you are interested on this controversy, read the masterpiece article in the Economist's April 17th 2008 issue, entitled "The Silent Tsunami". That will be a good starting point to understand the real causes and the paradoxes behind world hunger and poverty.

Also, the latest two books from Joseph E. Stiglitz have some chapters explaining how agricultural subsidies in the U.S. and several European countries, together with trade barriers, are among the real culprits for the poorest developing countries not being able to produce what they eat, and how many other countries are being barred from entering the "free" global market and developed by themselves. Just read Making Globalization Work and Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development. At least inform yourself properly and get the facts right before taking sides on this new global controversy. Happy 2008 Earth's Day!

The people in Washington have decided that growing corn to produce ethanol as a partial means to energy independence is consistent with national security goals. Consequently ethanol production, like domestic oil production receives government subsidies. Some may call it pork-barrel legislation and others may call it a "scam." Robert Bryce, in his recently published Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusion of Energy Independence (2008), actually entitles his chapter on ethanol, "The Ethanol Scam." Bryce's point is that ethanol production is not energy efficient and is not sustainable. Furthermore it is posited that we should be using our cropland to grow food for a hungry world that is likely to get hungrier.

Jeffrey Goettemoeller and Adrian Goettemoeller argue in this technical but readable book that ethanol production can be made energy efficient and sustainable. They counter the cropland for food argument by noting that only the carbohydrate component of the corn kernel is used to produce ethanol, adding that too much corn is now grown for food in America to the detriment of farmers elsewhere who cannot compete in the marketplace with cheap American corn. Consequently, our abundance puts small foreign farmers out of business and ironically creates food shortages. See pages 86-87 for the full argument.

As to the viability of ethanol for use in our vehicles, the authors contend that, although ethanol is only about two-thirds as energy rich as gasoline, it is nonetheless necessary since we will soon or late run out of gasoline. Furthermore, today's combustion engines can be altered to run more efficiently on ethanol than currently is the case. (See "flex fuel" vehicles.) Additionally, ethanol is valuable since burning it reduces vehicular pollution. Finally, ethanol is a necessary replacement for MTBE which here in California has been phased out due to its tendency to pollute underground water supplies.

The book begins with a brief but interesting history of ethanol production, how it was used in lamps before electricity, and how it was legislated against during Prohibition. They follow that with a consideration of oil production and consumption and the prospects for the return of cheap oil. They go on to tout the economic and security benefits of ethanol while considering the environmental impact. Fuel economy and the various gasoline/ethanol blends are discussed and how ethanol might improve fuel economy. There's a chapter on ethanol production from such feedstocks as sorghum, sugar, artichokes, and food waste. Cellulosic ethanol is considered. They close by urging conservation and more efficient use of fuel.

My personal opinion is that ethanol is one of many stop-gap measures we will be taking during the long, slow withdrawal from fossil fuels. In the final analysis, unless there are some major breakthroughs in more efficient ways to capture solar energy and the development of more efficient batteries to store energy, we will not be able to support the six and a half billion people on this planet at current energy levels.

I ordered this book with the expectation that this would be a step-by-step guide to small scale farming (similiar to the book Five Acres and Independence). The book is a historical account about a Philadelphia businessman who left the city in the late 1800s after 15 years of renting and failing as business owner in order to attempt a life of self-sufficiency on a ten acre farm he purchased. The book was such an interesting account of history that I read the first half of the day it arrived. However, once you get past how he purchased the farm and the first three or four years of trials and tribuluations, the author repeats himself for the later third of the book (make your own liquid manure, apply it to everything, attack the weeds with a hoe, work hard, pay cash, yadda, yadda, yadda). There are many instances where the book reads as if the author is speaking of the present times and economy (bank failures, people losing their jobs and homes, and how through all of this, people will still buy fresh fruits). I recommend this book for the small farmer or gardener who plans on starting up from scratch with little capital. I also recommend this book for those who are interested in the 19th century U.S. history. You will learn a lot of interesting facts that you did not learn in school and will be able to draw parrallels to the current state of the economy.

Ah, truly a book to inspire. I wanted to dash right out and dig up the old potato patch!
Although this is an American book and therfore I did not understand a lot of the geographical references, this in no way detracted from the enjoyment I got from this book. I felt a bit smug when thinking about the success I have had with my chickens, but quite wilted when comparing his raspberries and strawberries with mine! Next season, I'm going to get me a lawtonberry or two.
I found it a bit tedious towards the end but that was when he was no longer writing about his own little farm and I think many of his comments there are quite dated and of no practical value now.
This book was well written and entertaining, though some comments I feel should rather be taken with a pinch of salt.
Rather sorry that I have finished reading this book and heartily recommend it to anyone who has fancied getting a small-holding or even those who just want to grow something well in their own backyard. Many of his tips and comments are as valid today as they were 140 years ago.

This is one of my favorites. Since it was written during the mid-1860's, the writing style is perhaps a bit different from what we are used to nowadays, but not distractingly so. This farmer knows how to tell a story. He starts with his longing to leave the city, leads us through his search for an affordable property and then lets us follow him as he chooses his crops -- among them, 804 peach trees at 7 cents a piece, all dutifully "tarred" to prevent worms -- and markets the produce for the first few years on the farm. Along the way, he scatters fascinating tidbits about his life. One of my favorites is the story of his blackberry plants. While living in town, he had read of a new kind of blackberry that intrigued him, and though it was a very unheard of thing to do at the time, he orderd six of the plants by mail, at the princely sum of five dollars. When the plants arrived, he was shocked at their size and appearance. "They looked like long white worms, with here and there a bud or an eye" and was too embarassed to admit to his wife that he paid so much for them. But he planted them and tended them, and the next year had a magnificent crop of berries, and so finally admitted to the cost. He and his wife agreed it was a bargain at that, and since they loved the berries so much, they dug up the plants and took them along to their new farm. There, the berries attracted the attention of neighbors and nurserymen, and by being one of the first suppliers in the area, he was able to sell $460 worth of blackberry plants that first year on the farm -- quite a return on his initial five dollar investment.

There's more, and he catalogs it all: the cow that worked out well and the chickens that didn't, the way his neighbors thought him insane for battling the never-ending weeds, the value he saw in small birds, the money spent on load after load of manure, and mostly, the satisfaction of it all. There really is no substitute for farming done this way, where taking care of the land itself is still a priority, and the crops a source of pride. So if you are even the slightest bit interested in coming to the country in search of something better, I encourage you to read this book. Initially, I hesitated to buy it, figuring that it would be too irrelevant and dated, but no, it's not. It's absorbing. And though I can't find peach trees for 7 cents a piece today, the story is the same. And if you don't find yourself living in the country soon enough to suit you, you'll at least have had the pleasure of sharing Edmund Morris's farm for awhile.

Great read. I bought this book looking for some ideas on how to better enjoy the farm life I now have. This book tells about a man who is tried of the hustle and bustle of city life. (And mind you this was in the late 1800's). He writes in detail how to locate a small piece of property and live a much fulfilled life. I highly recommend this book. I have already loaned it out twice.

P.S. see if you can find the small reference about The Civil War.