Gene Logsdon has published more than two dozen books, both practical and philosophical. Gene's nonfiction works include Holy Shit, Small-Scale Grain Raising, Living at Nature's Pace, and The Contrary Farmer. He writes a popular blog, The Contrary Farmer, as well as an award-winning column for the Carey (OH) Progressor Times, and is a regular contributor to Farming magazine. He lives and farms in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
"A Sanctuary of Trees is a beguiling, companionable read, full of
sharp-eyed wonder, genuine humility, and a thousand nuts of useful
wisdom: when and how to build a plank road; how to not get killed
felling an old tree; how to get lost, and found; and -- if you read
his book as Logsdon walks his woods -- how to live a long, alert,
insatiably engaged life. This one's a keeper."--David Dobbs,
author, Reef Madness, and coauthor, The Northern Forest
"Back in 1929 J. Russell Smith published his classic Tree Crops: A
Permanent Agriculture. At the time, and mostly since, hardly anyone
seemed interested in reading about, let alone doing, farming that
includes trees as part of an appropriate, resilient agriculture and
even suggesting that such agriculture is a love of country. I
didn't expect to ever see a book like Smith's again, yet now we
have Gene Logsdon's A Sanctuary of Trees, a renewal of all those
classic ideas cast in the context of today's, and hopefully,
tomorrow's world."--Frederick Kirschenmann, author of Cultivating
an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Farmer Philosopher
"Gene Logsdon does it again! This time he is out past the gardens,
beyond the meadows, and deep into the groves and woodlots he has
known and loved. What he brings back is a lover's report on a
life-long affair of his. He is still contrary, thank goodness, more
respectful of forests than of forestry; but A Sanctuary of Trees is
a wonderfully woodsy book, neatly wrapped around a personal memoir.
Reading it, we watch Logsdon casually learn about sassafras, chain
saws, mistletoe, log houses, cordwood, birdsong, and a hundred
other bits of vital forest lore. In private life he may be a tree
hugger, and this narrative is seductive enough so that any
thoughtful reader will probably develop similar symptoms."--Ronald
Jager, author of Eighty Acres, Last House on the Road, and The Fate
of Family Farming
"I am more enamored with Gene Logsdon than ever after reading A
Sanctuary of Trees. Without melodrama, angst, or anything
resembling shock value, this lush autobiography details Mr.
Logsdon's relationship with -- of all things -- trees! Trees. How
sane and civilized it is. I learned so much from this grounded and
completely wonderful book."--Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a
Cracker Childhood and Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented
Land
"Logsdon peels away the storied layers of our forests and beckons
us to rekindle our connections with our most constant companions --
trees. This book belongs as much in the hands of educators as it
does on every homesteader's handmade bookshelf. Seldom are
reminiscences so forward-looking ... but that is ultimately
Logsdon's hallmark as an author."--Philip Ackerman-Leist,
professor, Green Mountain College, and author of Up Tunket Road
Booklist-
In more than two dozen works of nonfiction, horticulture expert
Logsdon has doled out invaluable advice on everything from berry
growing and organic orcharding to homesteading and managing manure.
Now, at 79, reflecting back on a life spent in close proximity to
the woodland groves of his native rural Ohio, Logsdon offers both a
fond recollection of his long relationship with trees and a
meditation on the remarkable versatility of harvested timber.
Beginning with his boyhood days on an Ohio family farm where his
love of nature first took root, Logsdon takes the reader through
his adolescence at a seminary where the one bright spot was a
nearby forest, to his first professional job with Farm Journal in
then untamed suburban Philadelphia, and finally back to Ohio,
living with his growing family in a tree shadowed country home. Yet
his own reminiscences are just a staging ground for a plethora of
fascinating tree facts, including a virtual manual on using wood
for total energy self-sufficiency. As always, Logsdon's superbly
measured prose entertains as much as it educates.
ForeWord Reviews-
Gene Logsdon is a man with a mission: He wants to encourage
Americans to maintain small home woodlots, heat with wood, and
return to what he calls a wood culture and a wood economy. A
Sanctuary of Trees, Logsdon's latest book, discusses in detail the
feasibility of depending on wood for fuel, both for individual
households and for our country as a whole. He makes a strong case.
In A Sanctuary of Trees the reader learns about trees in American
history and culture, how fast different species grow, how easily
their wood splits, how hot it burns, and even which wood leaves
fewest ashes. Techniques the author shares for using a chainsaw may
save some fingers--certainly they should save some aggravation! The
pleasures of gathering nuts and tips for cracking them come into
the picture, too.
Memoir, argument, lessons learned, advice
offered--beyond these valuable elements, the book is simply a
delight to read. Every page is rich with the happiness of a life
well lived, a life the author wishes for us all. Like the woodlots
he values so deeply, A Sanctuary of Trees is both resource and
refuge. It is impossible to read this without feeling enlightened
and grateful.
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