Product Description

Gene Logsdon has become something of a rabble-rouser in progressive farm circles, stirring up debates and controversies with his popular New Farm magazine column, The Contrary Farmer. One of Logsdon’s principle contrarieties is the opinion that—popular images of the vanishing American farmer, notwithstanding—greater numbers of people in the U.S. will soon be growing and raising a greater share of their own food than at any time since the last century. Instead of vanishing, more and more farmers will be cottage farming, part-time.
This detailed and personal account of how Logsdon’s family uses the art and science of agriculture to achieve a reasonably happy and ecologically sane way of life in an example for all who seek a sustainable lifestyle. In The Contrary Farmer, Logsdon offers the tried-and-true, practical advice of a manual for the cottage farmer, as well as the subtler delights of a meditation in praise of work and pleasure. The Contrary Farmer will give its readers tools and tenets, but also hilarious commentaries and beautiful evocations of the Ohio countryside that Logsdon knows as his place in the universe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30848 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.com
Gene Logsdon offers an alternative to the decline of the family farm by explaining how to successfully engage in what he calls "cottage farming" part-time for enjoyment as well as profit. This book gives readers the tools and information they need to grow their own food in a sustainable and Earth-friendly fashion, but it also tells some great, hilarious stories and includes some truly beautiful and evocative writing. This is not a dry, "how-to" book; it's a really great read even if you haven't a clue about (or any interest in) farming.

From Publishers Weekly
"Cutting down a large tree should be an act charged with ritual." Why? Farming columnist Logsdon ( Organic Orcharding ) points to the tree's "wonderful accomplishment" and to its "feat of survival" as models for ourselves. Then he goes on to discuss ways of felling trees that have come to the end of their lives and can therefore spare their wood for fuel. This collection of essays recommends cottage farming--the small-scale, part-time growing that aims to reduce food expenses and increase pleasure in living--in a tone that combines even-handed pragmatism, idealism ("Measure the value of products in human terms," he urges) and impatient realism ("Let those who put their faith in fancy threads laugh at your jeans"). The author rejects "institutionalized claptrap" for the greater benefits of rural independence and freedom, and outlines ways we can pursue these. "Flee the evils that centralized power always generates," he advises, calling himself an investor in "the tools that make sweat more productive." Logsdon raises a sanely unruly voice in a society where life too often only seems civilized. His correctives are not easily applied, but their promise and appeal (like his own) are powerful.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Logsdon is a writer for New Farm magazine and author of several books on small-scale farming and American agriculture, including At Nature's Pace: Farming and the American Dream (LJ 12/93). He is also a farmer, and experiences from his small Ohio farm provide much of the the subject material for The Contrary Farmer, which explains how he deals with crops, animals, machinery, the weather, and the neighbors. Just what is a contrary farmer? Among other things, one who is not afraid to go against the grain of conventional agricultural wisdom, who does not believe that bigger is always better or that no-till chemically maintained monocultures are superior to crop rotations and diversified farming. Logsdon is as staunch an advocate for the small family farm or acreage ("cottage farm" in his parlance) as you are likely to find. His latest book is thoughtful, entertaining, often irreverent, and brimming with ideas and practical advice. For public and academic libraries.
William Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The Contrary Farmer
While journalist minions report the family farm is dying or dead. Gene Logsdon proves that the family farm is thriving. Not only is the family farm thriving, but it is the solution to the current food crisis, a way to bring families closer together and make a small profit as well.
This book is part instruction manual, and part life changing stories for anyone with the courage to follow their dream to own a small farm.

Buy this book, buy a small farm, buy some chickens...
If we could look back at all the enormous changes to American life since WW2, I think the incredible move from an agrarian society to an industrial, urban society is the one thing most responsible for a vast majority of the ills of our Nation.

Removing average people, many of whom have no great aspirations, from their rural life where they can at least work honorably to feed themselves and perhaps sell a few eggs, or tomatoes, or whatever - to an uncaring welfare-supported (in one way or another) urban life-of-hell - is just wrong from so many points of view.

Lack of meaningful employment, of exercise and fresh air, of the satisfaction of improving your own small patch of earth is a terrible blow to civilation.

I know many will argue against the small farmers life, saying "it's too hard, and only the poor "must" do it so it must be discrimination against SOMEONE". Bother and Poppycock. There is NO more important undertaking than providing healthy food for yourself and your family, and perhaps a bit of excess occasionally that can be sold or traded to a neighbor for a bit of something you don't have.

Buy this book. Re-connect to nature, to your neighbors, and to a lifestyle that is full of meaning and of all that is good about this country and this earth.

The Contrary Farmer
This book is full of advice that's as good as it gets! The humor and common sense are non stop!! Buy a copy for yourself and buy another one for any friend who smiles at the thought of farming!