Carla Emery

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Carla (Carlotta Louise Harshbarger) Emery DeLong (January 19, 1939 – October 11, 2005). Born in Los Angeles where her parents had gone in search of employment after being displaced from their Washington State home by a crop failure, but grew up as a rancher's daughter in Montana after her parents moved there during her infancy (her father, Carl Harshbarger, had worked as chauffeur for Dorothy Lamour in Los Angeles for about two years, and had saved enough funds to buy some land there). Proponent of organic farming, the "back-to-the-land movement", and author of the Encyclopedia of Country Living. Opened the "School of Country Living" in Kendrick, Idaho in 1976 with her husband Mike Emery to teach homesteading skills. The "School" was destroyed by a flash flood the next year, and could not successfully be reestablished. Mike and Carla divorced in 1985. Carla married constitutionalist legal scholar Donald DeLong November 25, 2000 and moved to San Simon, Arizona.

Carla self-published the first mimeographed edition of the Encyclopedia under the title An Old-Fashioned Recipe Book. Although she began intending to write a book, she published it in installments starting in 1970 as she wrote it, as if it were a newsletter. The first complete book was finished in March of 1974. By the end of 1975 she had sold 13,000 copies. Around that time the book was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the "largest mimeographed volume in general circulation" (700 pages) and was listed as having sold the most copies of a self-published guide: 45,000 mimeographed copies as of 1977. The author believed that it might set a record for the most typographical errors in a book of its size, but reported that she did not have time to count them.

In the mid-70's she made several television appearances, including on "The Mike Douglas Show, "Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" and "Good Morning, America," and even demonstrated goat-milking on "Donahue".

Her book did not find a commercial publisher until the 7th edition, published by Bantam in 1977. The most recent edition of the Encyclopedia, the "updated ninth edition," was published by Sasquatch Press in 2003. (ISBN 0-912365-95-1)

During the 1990s she researched somnambulism, hypnosis, and mind control. She wrote a second book, Secret--Don't Tell: The Encyclopedia of Hypnosis, published in 1998. The book criticized hypnosis in general, and what the author considered to be its unethical uses.

[edit] Botanical Inaccuracy in The Encyclopedia of Country Living

In Chapters 2-6 of the Encyclopedia of Country Living, and particularly in Chapter 4, approximately 30 botanical and taxonomic errors occur. The most notable error is the author's consistent misreference to any crucifer (member of the plant family Brassicaceae, formerly Cruciferae) as a "brassica". The word "brassica" correctly refers only to members of the genus Brassica, within the family Brassicaceae. Crucifers such as radish and daikon (Raphanus spp.), horseradish, white mustard (Sinapis alba), watercress (Nasturtium officinale), seakale (Crambe maritima), rocket (Eruca spp.), etc. are not brassicas, although they are in the same family.

Some of the other botanically incorrect statements in the book include:

  • The claim that citron melon is a member of the genus Cucumis along with cucumbers. (In actuality, citron melon is a member of the genus Citrullus, which it shares with watermelons.)
  • The blanket statement that crab apple trees are hardier than other apple trees. (Apple cultivars vary greatly in hardiness, and crab apples vary in hardiness among themselves. The hardiest domestic apple cultivars are hardy in USDA zone 2, and possibly zone 1, and the least hardy can withstand temperatures characteristic of USDA zone 6. The hardiest crab apple cultivars are hardy in USDA zone 1, but the least hardy can withstand no temperatures colder than those characteristic of USDA zone 7.)
  • The inclusion of alliums (Allium sp.: onion, garlic, leek, etc.) in the lily family Liliaceae. (Alliums are classified either as part of the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae, or as the sole genus in a family of their own, Alliaceae. Due to morphological similarities, it is easy to understand how one could erroneously assume the alliums to be members of Liliaceae.)
  • The listing of the filbert and hazelnut as members of the genus Juglans along with walnuts. (Filberts and hazelnuts are actually members of the genus Corylus.)

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