Gene Logsdon

Managing Manure to Save Mankind

Holy Shit

For more than four decades, the self-described "contrary farmer" and writer Gene Logsdon has commented on the state of American agriculture. In Letter to a Young Farmer, his final book of essays, Logsdon addresses the next generation--young people who are moving back to the land to enjoy a better way of life as small-scale "garden farmers." It's a lifestyle that isn't defined by accumulating wealth or by the "get big or get out" agribusiness mindset. Instead, it's one that recognizes the beauty of nature, cherishes the land, respects our fellow creatures, and values rural traditions. It's one that also looks forward and embraces "right technologies," including new and innovative ways of working smarter, not harder, and avoiding premature burnout. Completed only a few weeks before the author's death, Letter to a Young Farmer is a remarkable testament to the life and wisdom of one of the greatest rural philosophers and writers of our time. Gene's earthy wit and sometimes irreverent humor combines with his valuable perspectives on many wide-ranging subjects--everything from how to show a ram who's boss to enjoying the almost churchlike calmness of a well-built livestock barn. Reading this book is like sitting down on the porch with a neighbor who has learned the ways of farming through years of long observation and practice. Someone, in short, who has "seen it all" and has much to say, and much to teach us, if we only take the time to listen and learn. And Gene Logsdon was the best kind of teacher: equal parts storyteller, idealist, and rabble-rouser. His vision of a nation filled with garden farmers, based in cities, towns, and countrysides, will resonate with many people, both young and old, who long to create a more sustainable, meaningful life for themselves and a better world for all of us.

How to Live Richly without Wealth on the New Garden Farm

Letter to a Young Farmer

Logsdon proves that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can think outside the agribusiness box and learn to grow healthy whole grains or beans--the base of the culinary food pyramid--alongside fruits and vegetables.

Small-scale Grain Raising

Pleasures & Promises Of Pasture Farming

All Flesh Is Grass

Offers the practical advice of a manual for the cottage farmer as well as meditation in praise of work and pleasure

The Contrary Farmer

The author tells of his journey back to the land, where he has found happiness & meaning.

Adventures of a Contrary Life

You Can Go Home Again

Discusses how nutritional value and safety of well-managed pastures offer an answer for stressed agricultural systems.

The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming

All Flesh is Grass

For decades, Logsdon and his family have run a viable family farm. Along the way, he has become a widely influential journalist and social critic, documenting in hundreds of essays for national and regional magazines the crisis in conventional agri-business and the boundless potential for new forms of farming that reconcile tradition with ecology. Logsdon reminds us that healthy and economical agriculture must work "at nature's pace," instead of trying to impose an industrial order on the natural world. Foreseeing a future with "more farmers, not fewer," he looks for workable models among the Amish, among his lifelong neighbors in Ohio, and among resourceful urban gardeners and a new generation of defiantly unorthodox organic growers creating an innovative farmers-market economy in every region of the country. Nature knows how to grow plants and raise animals; it is human beings who are in danger of losing this age-old expertise, substituting chemical additives and artificial technologies for the traditional virtues of fertility, artistry, and knowledge of natural processes. This new edition of Logsdon's important collection of essays and articles (first published by Pantheon in 1993) contains six new chapters taking stock of American farm life at this turn of the century.

Farming and the American Dream

Living at Nature's Pace

To his legions of readers, Gene Logsdon is best known as the Contrary Farmer. This is Logsdon's ode to the watery microcosms all around, from the half-acre farm pond to the suburban garden pool. Readers looking for hands-on experience will find plenty of pond-keeping do's and don'ts.

The Pond Lovers

Homesteading; how to Find New Independence on the Land

Gene Logsdon’s The Man Who Created Paradise is a message of hope at a time when the very concept of earth stewardship is under attack. The fable, inspired by a true story, tells how Wally Spero looked at one of the bleakest places in America—a raw and barren strip-mined landscape—and saw in it his escape from the drudgery of his factory job. He bought an old bulldozer and used the machine to carve patiently, acre by acre, a beautiful little farm out of a seemingly worthless wasteland. Wally’s story is a charming distillation of the themes that the late, beloved Gene Logsdon returned to again and again in his many books and hundreds of articles. Environmental restoration is the task of our time. The work of healing our land begins in our own backyards and farms, in our neighborhoods and our regions. Humans can turn the earth into a veritable paradise—if they really want to. Noted photographer Gregory Spaid retraced the trail that Logsdon traveled when he was inspired to write The Man Who Created Paradise. His photographs evoke the same yearning for wholeness, for ties to land and community, that infuses the fable’s poetic prose.

A Fable

The Man Who Created Paradise

A garden without berries is like spring without flowers. But with ever-increasing prices at grocery stores and markets, berries have sadly become a rare treat for most people. Successful Berry Growing is a book to solve this problem for good! A lifelong organic farmer, homesteader and student of everything agricultural, Gene Logsdon knows a thing or two about growing berries. And although Successful Berry Growing is geared to the small-scale or family operation, the information inside is useful for growing berries on any scale. You’ll learn how to: Optimize your soil for berry growing; Choose the right berry varieties for your climate; Properly plant and prune your berry plants; Keep your plants healthy and disease-free; With detailed information on cultivating strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, grapes, currants, gooseberries, cranberries, elderberries, huckleberries and more, Successful Berry Growing is all you need to grow nature’s most delicious candy in your own backyard!

How to Plant, Prune, Pick and Preserve Bush and Vine Fruits

Successful Berry Growing

"The organic homestead means something deeper than either the nobility of work or the pleasantness of leisure. What it must provide -- if the homestead is to have true success -- is a shrine to tranquility, an island of calm sanity to which you can retreat each day from the hectic outside world." Gene Logsdon is uniquely qualified to write about homesteading -- his heart has never been far from the land. He was born and raised on his family's farm, and as an adult he established a two-acre homestead before moving on to operate a 32-acre farm of his own. A prolific writer on a range of agricultural subjects, Gene Logsdon is beloved for his practical insight, folksy wisdom, and deep reverence for the natural world. He teaches and practices a homesteading philosophy of peaceful coexistence; of accommodating oneself to nature rather than dominating it. Homesteading is one of his first books, and the time-tested techniques it teaches are as relevant now as ever. Inside you'll find a wealth of information about maintaining a self-sustaining lifestyle, including: Financial considerations Soil science Organic vegetable and fruit cultivation Advice on selecting grain crops for your homestead Raising livestock And a great deal more Complete with photos and illustrations, this book is a wonderful resource for homesteaders and organic farmers alike. With an emphasis on enjoying the simple pleasures of a country life, Logsdon's infectious positivity and humor will keep you smiling even when the going gets tough. He never fails to remind us that the hard work of homesteading ain't worth a thing if you forget to put down your hoe, relax, and soak up the tranquil beauty of your natural surroundings. Gene Logsdon and his wife Carol have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio. Gene is the author of numerous books and magazine articles on farm-related issues, and believes sustainable pastoral farming is the solution for our stressed agricultural system. Readers interested in related titles from Eugene Logsdon will also want to see: Gene Logsdon's Practical Skills (ISBN: 9781626545953), Getting Food From Water (ISBN: 9781626545984), Organic Orcharding (ISBN: 9781626545793), Successful Berry Growing (ISBN: 9781626546004), Two Acre Eden (ISBN: 9781626545823), Gene Logsdon's Practical Skills (ISBN: 9781626545953), Getting Food From Water (ISBN: 9781626545984), Organic Orcharding (ISBN: 9781626545793), Successful Berry Growing (ISBN: 9781626546004), Two Acre Eden (ISBN: 9781626545823).

How to Find New Independence on the Land

Homesteading

“Nan turned to see Ben’s faceturn as hard and white as asauerkraut crock. When he didnot respond, Nan figured thathe was just going to back offas he usually did, the shy andretiring husbandman. She didnot know her history. She didnot know that shy and retiringhusbandmen have been knownto revolt against oppressionwith pitchforks drawn.” — The Last of the Husbandmen In The Last of the Husbandmen, Gene Logsdon looks to his own roots in Ohio farming life to depict the personal triumphs and tragedies,clashes and compromises, and abiding human character of American farmingfamilies and communities. From the Great Depression, when farmers tilledthe fields with plow horses, to the corporate farms and government subsidyprograms of the present, this novel presents the complex transformation of alivelihood and of a way of life. Two friends, one rich by local standards, and the other of more modest means,grow to manhood in a lifelong contest of will and character. In response tomany of the same circumstances—war, love, moonshining, the Klan, weather,the economy—their different approaches and solutions to dealing with theirsituations put them at odds with each other, but we are left with a deeper understanding of the world that they have inherited and have chosen. Part morality play and part personal recollection, The Last of the Husbandmen is both a lighthearted look at the past and a profound statement about the present state of farming life. It is also a novel that captures the spirit of those who have chosen to work the land they love.

A Novel of Farming Life

The Last of the Husbandmen

Includes information and techniques for testing, fertilizing and conditioning soil, mulching, making and using composts, draining, irrigating, and cultivating gardens.

The Gardener's Guide to Better Soil

When Gene Logsdon realized that he experienced the same creative joy from farming as he did from writing, he suspected that agriculture itself was a form of art. Thus began his search for the origins of the artistic impulse in the agrarian lifestyle. The Mother of All Arts is the culmination of Logsdon’s journey, his account of friendships with farmers and artists driven by the urge to create. He chronicles his long relationship with Wendell Berry and discovers the playful humor of several new agrarian writers. He reveals insights gleaned from conversations with Andrew Wyeth and his family of artists. Through his association with musicians such as Willie Nelson and his involvement with Farm Aid, Logsdon learns how music—blues, jazz, country, and even rock ’n’ roll—is also rooted in agriculture. Logsdon sheds new light on the work of rural painters, writers, and musicians and suggests that their art could be created only by those who work intimately with the land. Unlike the gritty realism or abstract expressionism often favored by contemporary critics, agrarian art evokes familiar feelings of community and comfort. Most important, Logsdon convincingly demonstrates that diminishing the connection between art and nature lessens the social and aesthetic value of both. The Mother of All Arts explores these cultural connections and traces the development of a new agrarian culture that Logsdon believes will eventually replace the model brought about by the industrial revolution. Humorous and introspective, the book is neither conventional cultural criticism nor traditional art criticism. It is a unique, lively meditation on the nature and purpose of art—and on the life well-lived—by one of the truly original voices of rural America.

Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse

The Mother of All Arts

The authot examines ways to deal with wildlife in your garden by benefitting from them instead of fighting them.

Gene Logsdon

About

Books

Join the club