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Book Review: Forty Acres and a Fool by Roger Welsch
Forty Acres and a Fool by Roger Welsch is a fun read and has plenty of pertinent information for urbanites thinking of making the transition from city life to country life. He’s not really writing for folks like me who would like to homestead but for the more general audience of “escape to the country” folks. He asserts several times that “farming” is not something that is likely to be done successfully by someone who didn’t grow up farming. The people he’s known who’ve tried it have failed, and he doesn’t do it himself—though technically his property is a “tree farm” and he has a number of tractors and farm implements. He does leave room for the person who moves to the country and takes on an agricultural hobby that grows into something more profitable, but he poo-poos the idea of moving out to the country and farming. And, to be fair, he’s right that it’s not all that easy to do.
His approach to housing is outside the mainstream in the way that he advocates salvage to the point of salvaging even entire buildings, but he’s not conversant with alternative homes like cob or strawbale, much less earthships. Ultimately he’s writing from his own experience, which is both a strength and weakness of the whole.
Welsch is an anthropologist by training, and as much as anything his book is a study of rural life (specifically Nebraskan rural life, but many specifics as well as his general approach are broadly applicable). Many people trying to move to country could certainly benefit from his experience, observations, and methodology. Indeed, this is probably where he’s most useful: many books cover the skills you’ll need to find a place in the country, to buy or build a home, to start up a homestead, but Welsch’s book fills an important niche in helping people unfamiliar with rural life get used to the cultural differences. It’s also often just a very fun read, as Welsch writes with great humor.