Comments on: Good Farming Was More Advanced A Hundred Years Ago

By: Gene Logsdon

Gene Logsdon — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:30:21 +0000

Oh, Andy, I used to, regularly. I try not to, these days. Tours are very disruptive… for a person like me. I must stay focused on my writing and it is very difficult to do so with so many distractions. I love solitude. Does that make sense? Sometimes, like right now, I wish I could show people how good things look here. And if we would have had more rain, oh my. But that is all pride. If you look through all my blogs, and all my books, and all the magazine articles I have written, believe me you know more about our place than I do. But thank you for you interest. I wish I could explain myself. I love one on one conversation. But I am not like so many other writers who do extensive traveling, speechifying, etc. I’d have actually made some money if I enjoyed getting in the limelight. But it just gives me high blood pressure and spastic bowel syndrome. I guess I was meant to be a hermit. Gene

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:11:04 +0000

Gene,
Do you ever give tours of your farm?
Andy

By: Gene Logsdon

Gene Logsdon — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:46:40 +0000

Robin: Yes, I’ve read about Sykes and I read Acres. Chuck Walters was a friend. And I love Sir Albert’s philosophy. But I don’t know about Sykes’ claims. I love to read these far out ag writers, but I’m the Great Disbeliever in just about everything. Thanks for commenting.

By: Robin McTaggart

Robin McTaggart — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:22:19 +0000

Hi Gene I stumbled on to your site and really like your attitude. :))

I have a small (150 acre) farm in Ontario and I have been raising cows, sheep and horses.

I wonder have you ever heard of Freind Sykes? He was a British organic farmer back in the 40′s (Sir Albert Howard made reference to him in his ‘Agricultural Testement) who had mastered a rotational grazing system with a large diversity of livestock. He had dairy and beef cows and sheep plus goats and horses. In the winter he raised earthworms. Anyway he boasted that he could bring cows that were infected with food and mouth onto his farm and not only would his cows not contract it but they would get better. This is quite the claim but listening to Jerry Brunetti (Acres) speaking about immunity and connection to soils he is observing that the greater biodiversity confers better immunity.

Cheers
Robin

He said the effect of the diversity was a pulsing of the land. He wrote several books one was ‘Humus and the Farmer’ which

By: Gene Logsdon

Gene Logsdon — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:29:33 +0000

David Ross, have you seen John Deere’s new 48 row, 240 ft planter yet?

By: David Ross

David Ross — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:46:20 +0000

Hi Gene
I’ve got 2 of your books and am inspired. I live amongst modern farmers so I’m pleased to learn there is a better way. I was recently talking to a 1000 acre farmer from Sussex, his diesel bill last year was £75,000, and at one time he was paying £380 a tonne for fertiliser, he reckoned about 4 acres to the ton! Plus sprays. That’s a bill of about £250,000!
I went in to a local tractor dealership and there was a picture on the wall of a Case tractor and the caption was “381 hectares ploughed in 24 hours”. It’s the sheer scale of ‘modern’ agriculture which amazes and horrifies me.
Keep up the good work
David

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:23:06 +0000

Gene, I’m reading this book, you may already heard about this book, Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness

http://www.lisamhamilton.com/book/DeeplyRooted.html

“A century of industrialization has left our food system riddled with problems, yet for solutions we look to nutritionists and government agencies, scientists and chefs. Lisa M. Hamilton asks: why not look to the people who grow our food?”