The essential resource for modern homesteading, growing and preserving foods, and raising chickens, The Encyclopedia of Country Living includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more. This comprehensive resource is the most authoritative guide available to a sustainable lifestyle and living off of the land.

Carla Emery started writing The Encyclopedia of Country Living in 1969 during the back-to-the-land movement of that time. She continued to add content and refine the information over the years, and the book went from a self-published mimeographed document to a book of 928 pages.

This 40th Anniversary Edition reflects the most up-to-date resource information and the most personal version of the book that became Carla Emery's life work. It is the original manual of basic country skills that have proved essential and necessary for people living in the country, the city, and everywhere in between.

Carla Emery's The Encyclopedia of Country Living contains 1,000,000 words, 2,000+ recipes, and 1,500+ mail-order sources (for everything she tells you how to do, she also tells you where to get the supplies to do it). This book is so basic, so thorough, so reliable, that it deserves a place in every home.

Table of Contents

1 Oddments
2 Introduction to Plants
3 Grasses, Grains & Canes
4 Garden Vegetables
5 Herbs & Flavorings
6 Tree, Vine, Bush & Bramble
7 Food Preservation
8 Introduction to Animals
9 Poultry
10 Goats, Cows & Home Dairying
11 Bee, Rabbit, Sheep & Pig
12 Appendix

“For the suburbanite with just enough space for a little garden to the die-hard homesteaders and everyone in between, The Encyclopedia of Country Living makes for both fascinating reading and a truly essential reference source. You won’t find a more complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing, cooking and preserving every kind of food—from the garden, the orchard, the field or the barnyard!”
Rodale Book Club

""If you're dreaming about moving ""back to the land"" someday, or if you're already there and want to live more self-sufficiently (wherever you may be) you'll want a copy of ... The Encyclopedia of Country Living.""
Organic Gardening

“This book is a monument to the coevolution of a person and an idea. As folk literature. . . this book should be shelved in your collection between the Foxfire books and Alicia Bay Lau­rel’s Living on Earth.”
Whole Earth catalog

 “Urbanites will find the recipes and resources list. . . useful, the trivia interesting. . . and Emery’s personal reflections. . . com­pelling. Even readers with no plans to raise sheep, sell home­made cheese or plant millet will find this a fascinating cultural document.”
Publishers Weekly

""Packed with old wisdom as well as up-to-date websites and mail-order sources to make country living easier.""
Country Almanac

“Although mainly a modern individualist’s resource on how to grow and prepare food, this work is much more. As one aston­ished browser acclaimed, ‘Is there anything this book doesn’t tell you how to do?’”
Library Journal

""If you’re thinking about ditching the city and reconnecting with a simpler, more direct way of life, living the self-sufficient lifestyle full-bore, or just living more directly and simply where you are right now, The Encyclopedia covers a wealth of information to keep you on target.""
Lehman's Country Living

“Practical advice, invaluable information, and collected wis­dom for folks and farmers in the country, city, and anywhere in between.”
Territorial Seed catalog