Critics of American agriculture bemoan the widespread decline of family farms. Gene Logsdon asserts that the solution to this crisis is cottage farming -- farming part-time, for fun as well as profit. For those seeking a saner, more authentic connection with a piece of ground, Logsdon explains ways to combine a successful vegetable garden with raising livestock, pastures, grains, and woodlots, the values of pastoral economics ("Stay small and don't borrow money!"), and how to save expenses and avoid erosion by cultivating with hand tools.
The Contrary Farmer combines the virtues of a manual for the practicing farmer with eloquent meditations in praise of hard work and pleasure. The book gives its readers tools and tenets, but also hilarious stories and beautiful evocations of the Ohio countryside Logsdon knows as his place in the universe.