“The encyclopedia of country living” summary — Carla Emery

Introduction

You feel the constant pressure of urban or suburban life and want to build a self-sufficient homestead. You need practical guidance to leave the city, secure the right land, and master traditional skills for daily survival. Carla Emery provides a massive manual on country living that details every step from buying rural acreage to growing, processing, and preserving your own food and energy.

True country living combines legal land ownership, food and livestock self-sufficiency, and rigorous traditional housekeeping skills to achieve genuine independence.

The book covers land selection, alternative energy, soil care, intensive gardening, grain cultivation, and staple crop processing. You will learn how to build a resilient household that relies on local resources rather than external supply chains.

How do you evaluate a rural land title and secure reliable water?
What methods maximize food production on a small plot?
How do you grow, harvest, and process your family's annual grain supply?

1. Making the Move and Choosing Land

True country living requires the legal right and physical space to grow both food plants and livestock, distinguishing it from mere suburban gardening or commuter developments.

Urban living permits no food production, and suburban living allows gardens but forbids food animals like chickens, pigs, or goats. Real country living provides the opportunity to produce both plants and animals, freeing you from food shortages and chemical additives.

Moving to the country involves attempting many incompatible tasks simultaneously, leading to frequent crop and animal failures that require resilience and a willingness to prioritize survival over perfection. Homesteads remain pathetically dependent on city money, as off-farm jobs are usually required to pay for expensive land and equipment.

Barbara Ingram moved to 5 undeveloped acres in northern Idaho with an old trailer and twenty dollars, surviving her first year without plumbing, electricity, or gas before eventually building up livestock and a productive homestead. Mike had to drive 28 miles to work in town, while Linda Lanigan and her husband earned 50 cents an hour working on ranches for five years.

Land Selection and Financing

Prospective land buyers must thoroughly investigate soil fertility, water rights, road access, and zoning restrictions before purchasing rural property.

Buying land requires careful planning to ensure the soil can support a garden, water is reliably available through dry summer months, and legal access exists via year-round roads. You should consult government extension agents and topographical maps to avoid purchasing land with unpayable encumbrances or illegal building restrictions.

Ask the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service or county extension agent for local advice and soil depth information.
Check U.S. Geological Service topographic maps and aerial photographs for elevations and roads.
Ask the town or county clerk about tax rates, assessed values, and recent reevaluations.
Consult the local planning board and zoning commission for growth plans and restrictions.
Interview neighbors regarding seasonal changes, water persistence, and property history.
Hire a local attorney to review rights sold to or away from the land.
Hire a surveyor to determine exact acreage and boundary lines if not already surveyed.

Financing land purchases through owner contracts carries the severe risk of total loss if payments fall behind due to balloon clauses or strict default terms. A man who bought an apartment house for $62,000 lost the property and all his investment after eight years because he did not understand that his coming balloon payment required the entire remaining principal and interest to be paid at once.

The amount of land needed depends entirely on the intended production scale, ranging from a half acre for a small garden and a few animals to ten acres for a mini-farm with ponds. A half acre allows for bees, an orchard, 2 milk goats, 2 weaner pigs, 3 to 12 hens, and rabbits. Two acres space required to comfortably pasture a cow alongside a sizable garden and orchard, while ten acres accommodates ponds, field crops, and waterfowl.

Daily Habits for Homestead Productivity

Maintaining personal efficiency and accomplishing heavy workloads on a homestead is aided by disciplined daily habits and the elimination of media distractions. You can maintain productivity by following personal rules that keep your energy focused on essential tasks.

Don't discuss the obvious.
Don't own a television.
Quit a job when you're losing efficiency.
Go to bed when you're tired.
Eat less salt and sugar, and use less heat.
Keep lists of things to do and things to buy.
Get somebody else to do as many of those tasks as possible.
Abstain from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and illegal drugs.
Sing a lot and pray a lot.

2. Alternative Energy and Emergency Preparation

Achieving energy independence and preparing for household emergencies require renewable resources, safe water storage, and basic medical preparedness.

Households can utilize several renewable energy sources such as wind, water, solar, methane, and wood to achieve energy independence. Families generate power through small creek turbines, solar panels, windmills requiring at least an 8-mph average wind velocity, methane digesters from fresh animal manure, or wood burning. Mazda works on developing hydrogen-fueled cars to emit no carbon-dioxide gases and reduce smog.

Maintaining safe drinking water during emergencies requires specific storage quantities and precise purification methods. Households should store 0.5 gallon of family member per day for long-term drinking water storage in gallon plastic jugs or glass jars, changing plastic water every six weeks and glass water every three years. In emergencies, questionable water can be treated by boiling or adding liquid laundry bleach containing only sodium hypochlorite.

Fill all sinks, the bathtub, and clean garbage cans with water if a disaster is approaching.
Add 2 to 3 drops of pure bleach per quart of clear-looking water, or 5 drops per quart if the water is dirty.
Boil swimming pool or pond water for 5 minutes before drinking.

Emergency Procedures

Women experiencing unassisted births must remain calm, immediately clear the infant's airway, and manage the umbilical cord safely. Without anesthetics, a sudden adrenaline rush provides full alertness post-delivery.

Sit up immediately after delivery and check if the cord is wrapped around the baby's neck.
Gently unwind the cord from the baby's head without pulling.
Tear open intact membranes with your fingers so the baby can breathe.
Scoop mucus out of the baby's mouth with your finger while holding the baby upside down.
Place the naked baby inside your clothing next to your warm skin to prevent chilling.

Financial Management

Individuals can regain control over personal finances by tracking expenditures, evaluating debt loads, and applying structured budgeting habits. Overcoming financial distress requires auditing past checks and cash spending, assessing credit reports, and establishing monthly savings.

Review past checkbooks from at least the past 3 months and assign every check to a spending category.
Keep a dollar diary of all cash expenditures for 2 weeks to 1 month.
Obtain a credit record print-out from a credit reporting service.
List all bills, categorize debts, and evaluate excessive debt loads.
Cut up overused credit cards and flush them down the toilet.
Lay out a monthly budget and pay yourself first.
Set up an automatic monthly transfer from checking to savings.

3. Soil Composition, Watering, and Organic Fertility

Productive organic gardening depends on maintaining optimal soil pH, handling animal manure correctly, and practicing deep, infrequent watering.

Soil Management

A slightly acidic to neutral soil pH between 6.3 and 6.8 is optimal because it maximizes nutrient availability and supports beneficial soil microorganisms. Soil microorganisms that fix atmospheric nitrogen and decompose organic matter into humus thrive best in this pH range, ensuring that essential mineral nutrients remain accessible to plants.

Add compost to correct a soil that is either too acid or too alkaline.
Take soil samples from four places in your garden, mix them, and avoid taking samples from where legumes have been growing.

Animal manure is a valuable home-grown organic fertilizer, but proper handling with bedding is required to retain nutrient-rich urine and prevent leaching. Animal urine contains 50 percent of the animal's nitrogen and 60 percent of its potassium, which is lost without fine bedding materials like sawdust or chopped straw to trap it. Compost piles must be protected from drying out or excessive rain leaching.

Use fine bedding materials such as sawdust, wood shavings, or chopped straw to trap and hold animal urine.
Construct compost piles at least 5 or 6 feet deep and not more than 6 feet wide, covering them with plastic or dirt.
Time the deep-litter spring barn cleaning for several weeks before spring plowing and stack manure into compost piles.

Growing and tilling in fast-growing green manure crops is an effective biological method to choke weeds, suppress grasses, and add organic fertilizer. Green manures like buckwheat, rye grass, and clover enrich the soil as they decompose, but tilled-in green manure requires a waiting period of about 3 weeks to fully compost before planting seeds to avoid temporary nitrogen starvation.

Plant a quick-growing green manure crop like buckwheat into plowed ground.
Cut or mow dense green manure before tilling it into the topsoil.
Wait about 3 weeks under warm, rainy conditions for the green manure to decompose before planting seeds.

Water and Pollution

Plants need damp soil to absorb dissolved nutrients, and morning is the ideal watering time to support daytime photosynthesis while allowing foliage to dry before night to prevent mildew. Deep, infrequent soakings are superior to frequent shallow sprinkles because they encourage deep root systems and prevent surface evaporation waste.

Water until the soil is wet to a depth of 4 to 6 inches.
Water again only when the soil gets dry to a depth of about 4 inches.
Water newly planted seeds every morning and evening until they are up.

Plants are extremely sensitive to airborne pollutants such as ozone, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen fluoride, often showing damage much faster than humans. Active and fast-growing plants take in more pollutants and exhibit specific damage: ozone causes bleached or dark pigmented stippling on leaves, sulfur dioxide causes tan spots between leaf veins, and hydrogen fluoride burns leaf margins.

An Idaho friend who moved onto a rural acreage discovered 6 months later that her baby was sick from high nitrate water causing blue-baby anemia. Agricultural nitrate fertilizers leach easily into groundwater, creating severe health hazards such as blue-baby anemia and carcinogenic nitrosamines.

4. Gardening Techniques and Seed Selection

Intensive gardening methods, double-digging, vermicomposting, and botanical naming maximize food production on small plots.

You must locate gardens safely away from contamination sources. Soil within 100 feet of a street or within 10 feet of pre-1950 wooden structures with exterior lead-based paint can contain hazardous levels of lead. Near stop signs and stoplights, lead content can reach 5 times normal. You can test your soil lead levels, remove the top 3 inches of contaminated soil, and replace it with new topsoil.

Double-digging is the most thorough way to prepare a seed bed by loosening soil down to 20 to 24 inches deep.

Take a shovelful of topsoil out and move it over.
Take a spading fork and loosen the next foot of soil down by wobbling it around.
Refill your trenches as with single digging.

Draft animals provide reliable pulling power for small farms. A horse can pull 16-foot logs, and a team can pull 300 pounds all day long if you stop and rest them often. When working animals on a terribly hot day reaching 105°F, bring the animal in at noon and give it a 2-hour break in the shade. Always quit working the animal while it is still pulling to leave one pull in it.

Vermicomposting converts household garbage into water-soluble humus castings. Build a bin no deeper than 12 inches, with 1 square foot of surface for each pound of garbage added per week. Prepare worm beddings using shredded cardboard, shredded paper, manure, leaves, or peat moss. Dig a shallow hole in the bedding, put the garbage in it, and cover with 1 inch of bedding on a rotating 9-day cycle. Use a rule of thumb of 2 pounds of worms per 1 pound of garbage, starting with pit-run worms averaging 2,000 to a pound.

Seed Saving and Botany

Using Latin plant names provides a universal standard to identify exact plant species and avoid confusing trade names in seed catalogs. Taxonomic classification groups all living plants into kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species, spanning 5 kingdoms of living creatures.

Check seed catalogs and plant books for Latin names alongside common names to verify exact species.
Abbreviate the genus name using the first letter and a period after the first mention when mentioning plants of the same genus repeatedly.

You can clean harvested seeds using homemade sieves constructed from wire mesh. Buy ⅛-inch, 3⁄16-inch, and ¼-inch wire mesh squares measuring 18 inches square. Staple or nail the wire tightly onto a wooden side frame with 2-inch approximate height sides to form the bottom of a wooden box. Shake the grain-weed mixture in the box to screen out objects larger or smaller than your grain size.

Intensive Cultivation

Intensive gardening strategies maximize food production on small plots by utilizing continuous bearers and vertical space.

Grow leafy vegetables like lettuce, chard, mustard, or endive in semishaded areas.
Refuse sprawling varieties like winter squash, cucumbers, watermelons, and corn, or use compact bush kinds.
Interplant fast-maturing vegetables like radishes between slower-maturing vine plants.
Give preference to continuously bearing vegetables such as chard over spinach.
Harvest daily in season to keep plants producing.

Knox Cellars explores intensive gardening on city lots, growing fruit trees by the espalier method and pollinating them with Orchard Mason bees.

5. Propagation, Undercover Gardening, and Pests

Protecting crops with cold frames, managing pests organically, and mastering seed storage ensure continuous food yields.

Store dried seeds in glass or plastic sealed with freezer tape. Place seeds in a paper or plastic package in the freezer overnight. Take them out and let them thaw completely. Repeat the freezing and thawing cycle at least 3 times.

Undercover Growing

Covering garden beds transforms radiant sunlight into heat energy. This trapped warmth accelerates growth and prevents frost damage.

In the Pacific Northwest, lettuce planted March 2 inside a cloche was ready for harvest by mid-April and yielded 3 to 4 times more per square foot than open-bed lettuce.

Pest Control and Vegan Preparation

Healthy plants resist pests best. You can use biological controls and physical covers to protect your crops.

Ensure soil is well-fertilized, loose, and watered as needed.
Rotate vegetable planting locations every year.
Use diatomaceous earth to combat slugs and snails when dry.
Release beneficial insects such as ladybugs and predatory mites.
Remove disease-infected plants and put them on a separate trash pile or burn them.

Barb Ingrams from Stites, Idaho, used black plastic or newspapers laid over the garden soil with cut holes for plants to eliminate weed pulling and retain heat and moisture.

6. Grain Cultivation, Harvesting, and Processing

Organic, hand-raised wheat yields at least 40 to 80 bushels per acre, meaning a small plot such as 20 by 55 feet can produce a year's supply for a family of four. A chart outlines specific square footage requirements per bushel for various grains:

Barley: 10 x 90 feet per bushel
Buckwheat: 10 x 130 feet per bushel
Field Corn: 10 x 50 feet per bushel
Oats: 10 x 60 feet per bushel
Rye: 10 x 150 feet per bushel
Grain Sorghum: 10 x 60 feet per bushel
Wheat: 10 x 100 feet per bushel

Winter varieties get a head start in spring, resulting in higher average yields, but carry a risk of winter-kill if there is no snow cover during deep freezes. Carla Emery mentions her father's hard wheat ranching in Clyde Park, Montana, and notes that winter wheat averages 4.3 pounds per 100 square feet compared to 3.7 pounds for spring wheat.

Plant winter varieties in September or later
Allow livestock to graze winter grain briefly if needed to hold back stooling
Ensure snow cover during extreme cold to insulate the crop

Steve Solomon uses an Earthway one-row-at-a-time seeder to plant grain about 1 inch deep in rows spaced 12 inches apart for easy weed control.

Walk the patch lengthwise then widthwise for even manual broadcasting coverage
Use guide stakes with handkerchiefs to keep lines straight when broadcasting large fields
Cover broadcast seed with about an inch of dirt using a rake or harrow
Alternatively, plant on well-tilled soil just before a hard rain

Harvesting and Curing

Small-scale grain harvesting without petroleum-powered machinery relies on hand tools such as sickles, scythes, and cradles. Don Winter from Nova Scotia wrote about cutting wheat by hand with a sickle, bundling and stooking it, but warned that cutting in damp coastal fog requires immediate indoor drying to prevent fungus.

Grasp a clutch of grain heads with one hand and pull the serrated sickle blade toward you
Swing the scythe in an arc so the blade meets the grain at about a 45-degree angle, cutting 3 to 4 inches above ground
Bring the cradle back and up to let cut grain slide gently into a neat pile on the ground
Whet the scythe blade with a rough stone for grain

Hand-reaped grain bundles must be cured in outdoor shocks or stored in ricks to finish ripening and drying before threshing.

Stand bound grain bundles into round or long shocks as soon as possible after reaping
To make a round shock, push butt ends into the ground and lean sheaves inward toward the center
Cap shocks for rain protection by breaking a bundle over your arm into a V-shape and laying it over the top
Build rick bases on a raised foundation of brush or boards 7 to 12 inches above the ground
Keep rick bundle butts pointing outward and slope the center high to shed driving rain

Scott Thompson from Tremont, Illinois, shared his experiences with antique steam and gas threshing shows, noting that a working binder costs around $100 and a thresher $200 to $300 in 1992 prices.

Unbind sheaves and lay grain on a floor in two rows or a circle with heads to the center
Beat grain heads with a flail using a steady rhythmic swing
Lift straw away with a pitchfork, shaking it to let grain and chaff fall to the floor
Winnow by pouring the threshed mixture from a high place in a breeze, or use a winnowing basket or fan

Grinding and Safety

Stored grain must be kept very dry and protected from insects and mice using airtight containers, natural deterrents, or temperature treatments. Lee Bannister from Pullman, Washington, noted that saving seed wheat without treatment leads to worm damage cutting yields in half each year until nothing is left.

Dry grain thoroughly in the sun or dehydrator before sealing
Store grain in 5-gallon plastic or metal cans with airtight lids, placed on wooden planks rather than directly on cement
Add half a pound of dry ice per 100 pounds of grain in airtight containers to create a carbon dioxide barrier
Add food-grade diatomaceous earth at a rate of 1.25 cups per 5-gallon container of grain
Store infested grain in the freezer for 4 days to kill insects and eggs

Linda R. Caporeal published an article in Science suggesting that the bizarre symptoms and accusations of spectral torture during the Salem witch trials were actually caused by ergot poisoning from damp rye harvests.

Inspect grain for dark crescent-shaped sclerotia bodies and discard if found
Do not feed moldy or ergot-contaminated grain to humans or livestock due to risks of poisoning and miscarriage
Starve out ergot in contaminated soil by planting a non-grass grain crop for at least 3 years
Remove ergot sclerotia from seed grain by soaking and stirring in extremely salty water until the sclerotia float to the top for skimming

Carla Emery notes that the Family Grain Mill made in Germany produces excellent bread-quality flour in a single grinding and costs about $130.

Store home-ground flour in airtight glass jars or 5-gallon metal/plastic cans
Freeze flour if you plan to keep it for more than a week to prevent rancidity and weevils
Never run burrs on empty to avoid wearing them out prematurely
Grind grain just before using for maximum flavor and vitamin retention

In Pennsylvania agricultural experiments, Rodale obtained 1,600 pounds of amaranth per acre, while California growers have doubled that yield.

Plant amaranth seeds in spring after all frost danger has passed, in full sun and well-drained neutral or basic soil
Sow shallowly at no more than one-third to one-half inch deep on a level, well-cultivated seedbed
Keep soil damp initially until plants get well established
Pop seeds in a wok or fry pan, mix with honey or molasses, and shape into popcorn-type balls

7. Staple Crops, Corn Processing, and Paddy Rice

Growing staple crops gives you reliable calories and nutrient reserves for your homestead kitchen. You must match each crop to its unique soil, water, and processing requirements.

Staple crops like corn, millet, oats, quinoa, and rice provide essential calories and nutrients when processed correctly.

Corn and Nixtamalization

Corn is a heavy feeder that yields significantly per kernel planted and provides food, forage, and building materials. Because corn is wind-pollinated via tassels to silks, it must be planted in blocks of at least four adjacent rows rather than a single long row to ensure complete kernel development. One kernel yields about 750 kernels back, reaching 25 to 90 bushels per acre for home plots, and up to 150 to 300 bushels for commercial dent corn.

Lane Morgan favorites include Burgundy Delight hybrid sweet corn, while the Borries family in Teutopolis, Illinois, kept open-pollinated dent corns alive through the 1970 blight epidemic.

Select one of the eight basic corn varieties based on climate and use.
Plant in rows spaced 24 to 40 inches apart depending on weeding methods.
Plant seeds 1 inch deep for early plantings and 1.5 to 2 inches deep for later ones.
Thin plants to 8 to 10 inches apart for standard varieties.
Control weeds early, keeping deep cultivation within 1 to 1.5 inches deep once corn is established to avoid damaging shallow roots.

Processing hard corn into hominy releases bound niacin and prevents pellagra.

Dissolve 1/3 cup baking soda in 1 gallon of water for every 2 gallons of shelled corn.
Boil the corn covered for about 2 hours until the hulls slip off.
Drain the soda water before hulls fully detach to prevent nutrient leaching.
Rinse the corn thoroughly in running water while rubbing between hands to remove hulls.
Cover with fresh water, add salt and sweetening, and cook for about 4 hours until tender.

Aquatic and Pseudocereal Grains

Millet grows rapidly during short rainy seasons, can go dormant during dry spells without harm, and acts as an alkaline grain helpful for those with acidosis. Phyllis Vallette, a missionary in Burkina Faso, noted millet as the staple cereal because it grows fast enough for short rainy seasons.

Sow millet in spring after the last anticipated frost.
Broadcast or plant in rows depending on the variety size.
Harvest seed heads just before they are fully ripe to prevent bird loss.
Dry bundles upside down under cover indoors.
Run seeds through a hand mill with plates set 1/16 inch apart to remove seed coats.

Oat straw is highly nutritious for livestock and oats lower cholesterol for humans, but ordinary oat varieties have sharp, bitter hulls that are difficult to separate. Steve Solomon noted that making porridge from freshly cracked oat groats is far superior to using stale, rancid rolled oats.

Roast oats for about an hour and a half to loosen hulls and reduce moisture.
Grind roasted oats through a burr mill set to 1/16-inch clearance between burrs.
Winnow out the removed hulls using the wind or a fan.
Store hulled groats or process into flour and flakes.

Quinoa handles drought, cold, and poor soils exceptionally well, but its seed coat contains saponin, a bitter soap-like compound that must be completely soaked or rinsed out before cooking.

Soak dry quinoa seed overnight in a jar with a screen lid.
Drain and rinse the seed with cold water two to four times a day.
Continue until the rinse water stops foaming, which indicates saponin removal.
If foaming persists after 72 hours, briefly boil the seed twice, pouring off the soapy water each time.

Lowland rice is a semi-aquatic grain that thrives when its soil is flooded during most of its growing period. David Spiekerman and D.H. Grist documented detailed family garden rice-growing methods and traditional manual techniques from around the world.

Construct level, earth-banked paddies with a slight slope for controlled drainage.
Maintain water depth between 4 and 6 inches during the active growing phase.
Stock mosquito fish at 100 fish per acre or drain paddies at night to control mosquitoes.
Drain the paddy 3 to 5 days before harvest to dry the soil for cutting.

Northern wild rice is an aquatic water-oat requiring clean, flowing shallow water and sunlight to thrive. The Sioux called wild rice pshu and the Chippewas called it man-om-in as their primary northern staple food.

Locate planting sites in 6 to 12 inches of moving, aerated fresh water with soft sediment.
Clear competing vegetation like reeds and cattails before introduction.
Harvest when mature by drying seed heads under cover to prevent sprouting.

8. Baking, Leavening, and Special Grains

Mastering wheat baking, leavening mechanisms, and sweet sorghum syrup production completes the homestead kitchen's grain utilization.

Wheat is a foundational grain prized for its high gluten content. You can dissolve dry yeast in warm water between 110 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit with a little sugar.

Wheat and Sorghum

Sweet sorghum produces abundant juice that you can boil down into syrup. Raymond Weaver recommends the Dale variety and uses a three-roller horse-drawn mill.

You can harvest sweet sorghum syrup by following these steps:

Strip leaves, cut stalks near the ground, and chop off seed clusters before milling.
Press green juice out of canes immediately without waiting more than 24 hours.
Pull syrup when it reaches 226 to 230 degrees Fahrenheit or when it begins to thread off a pusher.

Baking Science

Chemical leavening relies on combining baking soda with acidic ingredients like sour milk, buttermilk, molasses, or cream of tartar. Mrs. Essemen provided a homemade baking powder formula consisting of 350 grams of cream of tartar, 150 grams of bicarbonate of soda, and 100 grams of cornstarch.

You can mix yeast dough successfully by observing these rules:

Dissolve dry yeast by sprinkling over 110-115 degree Fahrenheit water containing a small amount of honey or sugar.
Check rising progress by poking two fingers into the dough; proceed when the indentation remains.
Cool baked bread on a rack and butter the top crust immediately for a softer finish.

Conclusion