SOLVED. Nonfiction 19th c. ebook Sisters Moving to the Country. [s]

[Estencele]

It was about the time when I was reading a lot of books like "Ten Acres Enough", "Three Acres and Liberty", "Cottage Economy", and first person city-people-move-to-the-country-and-figure-out-how-life-works narratives about gardening, animal husbandry, and homesteading. (1860-1910'ish) I read it online back between 2006-2009, and it might have possibly been posted to the Hathi Trust Digital Library, or Project Gutenberg, or SoilandHealth, or Google Books, or Archive.org, or somewhere like that. But when I hunt around in those archives, I'm not able to find what I'm looking for.

It's a nonfiction, autobiographical this-is-how-we-did-it sort of narrative. The book starts off with a pair of sisters (?) from the city who are shopping for their future homestead. Their agent brings them past a number of old, falling-down farmsteads, but have difficulty finding anything in their price range that's close enough to the train station for convenience and isn't a decrepit wreck. Eventually, they find a place that's shabby, but has promise, and they're able to buy it and get it fixed up.

Stuff happens in the middle, I think. Probably involves things like chickens and gardens and things.

The next part that I remember is their adventures in trying to make butter. (I think it was towards the middle-end.) They have no clue how to make butter. Some days, the butter forms quickly, in minutes; other days, they can churn the butter for an hour and not have any progress. They realize there's a correspondence between temperature and butter-formation, and armed with this new knowledge, butter-making/dairying proves to be a successful business enterprise for them.

Does anyone else read these sorts of books? I was hoping someone would go, "Oh, yeah! The one about the sisters. That's ------." :)

TIA!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I haven't read this, but I feel like I've read about this book. I feel like the sisters were famous - the Beecher family? Alcotts? I don't think it was them but it was maybe an equally famous name.

[Estencele]

Woooo, I found it!

It was called "Our Farm of Four Acres", by Miss Coulton, first published in 1860.

Now I need to go buy a copy for my bookshelf!

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Estencele. Here's a link - Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it by Miss Coulton.