I'd like to use "100+ acre farm" in the text of an historic marker, but I'm wondering if I need a hyphen.

Mmm, a good question.

Clearly this should be a compound adjective, but it would look very unwieldy:

100+-acre farm

It is possible to group compound adjectives using italics and quotation marks, but they do not look right either:

"100+ acre" farm
100+ acre farm

You could try:

100-plus-acre farm

or:

a farm of more than 100 acres
a farm comprising more than 100 acres

or, find out exactly how many acres and use that:

104-acre farm

Without seeing the context or knowing your style, I would struggle to make a decent recommendation, but hopefully I've given you some ideas.

Rgds

Craig

PS Apologies for all the adverts of the site, I am working on having them removed!

Thanks for the reply.

I agree that the 100+-acre farm is awkward at best. I'm unable to verify the exact acreage during the time period discussed on the marker. I thought using the + sign would be more readable from a distance, but I have found a reference to 100-plus (hyphen, plus written out) so I'm leaning toward that.

I also thought of changing the wording as you suggested.

The text of the marker in part: A thriving family-run business operated on this site from 1888 to 1913. John S. Burbank and his wife, Clara, started distributing ketchup to customers on John’s milk route and eventually sold product throughout New England. In a single year 12,000 bottles could be made from the 10,000 tomato plants grown on the farm’s 100-plus acres. Piccalilli, mustard, and applesauce were also produced.

What do you think of that change--"grown on the farm's 100-plus acres"?

I like it. The whole thing reads really well.

Piccalilli, mustard, and applesauce were also produced.

Lynn Truss calls this comma 'an Oxford comma". This site leans away from that. In my view, the last item in a list should only be afforded a comma if it helps to eliminate ambiguity.

The subject is covered here.

The comma's not wrong. I just don't see the need for it.

All the best

Craig