Gene Logsdon: Accidental Farm Lessons

Tweet

Gene Logsdon: Acquiring Knowledge By Accident

Gene Logsdon is one of our great agrarian writers. And for a while now he’s been bloging too on OrganicToBe.org. This is just one of his great farm stories…

INTRO: We learn our lessons more by chance than by deliberation.  Or maybe it is more to the point to say that we learn by living. For sure, what we learn from experience sticks with us longer than what we think we learn in classrooms.  I can’t remember how to do algebra problems involving two unknowns but I will never forget what happened when I was dumb enough to touch a frosty piece of iron with my tongue.

I learned by chance that a good way to start tree seedlings is not to clean out the roof gutters. Another accidental discovery: you can make a deer proof fence by planting a row of red cedar trees about ten feet apart and after they get 15 feet tall or so, tie a wire panel fence to the trunks. The trees will continue to grow, closing the space between them with dense branches that extend above the fence high enough to stop the deer from jumping over. The only problem is that you have to accidentally learn this lesson many years before it takes effect.

Here’s another one…