Gene Logsdon, author of "A Sanctuary of Trees," has spent most of his long lifetime among trees. As a boy, trees were his playground, as the cover photograph illustrates. Later they became his classroom, where to this day he continues to learn their lessons. He has eaten food produced by his own trees, used trees to make everything from fence posts to furniture for his wood home among the trees and heated his Ohio home with wood from those trees since 1979. Mostly trees are his sanctuary, where he feels most at home and most at peace.

As a young man he flirted with the idea of becoming a priest, until he realized the main appeal of the seminary he attended was that it was set in a wooded area. When later he became a staff writer for Farm Journal, he and his wife were required to live in Philadelphia. Yet they managed to find a house on a wooded lot adjacent to other wooded lots. Later he returned to Ohio to the very woods he knew as a boy, and he has since made his living as a professional writer.

Although he loves trees, Logsdon doesn't see the cutting of trees as the evil that many others do. Trees have a way of coming back. He calls them "big weeds" at one point. They grow whether you want them or not. Even with all the trees being cut down for firewood and to clear land for development, he says, the number of trees in the United States is actually on the rise. He speaks of "urban forests," those acres of trees found in most cities, towns and subdivisions in America.

Logsdon's book is part memoir and part meditation, but it is mostly a handy guide for identifying trees, growing trees and using trees for all their many benefits. He advocates returning to a wood-based culture, and he tells how to go about doing just that. How much wooded acreage do you need to heat your home with wood, yet not deplete your woodland? How do you build a fire in a fireplace? How can you turn your trees into money? Logsdon answers these questions, and many more you would have never thought to ask.

"When I look at a tree, I find it difficult to think of it as a plant," he writes. "It looks like pure magic to me." Like trees, Logsdon's book has a bit of magic in it. ( )

Partway thru this book I began to feel as if I had read it before. Logsdon does repeat some of the same points throughout the book, but also generally mentions which chapter he had previously discussed them. It's possible he's made these same points in previous books. In general, his teaching on sustainable living & forestry is low key, and his pitch for changing our dependence on fossil fuels is not as strident as many other books on the subject. In fact, he comes across as a friendly neighbor, so enamored of his love for trees that he can't help but share his enthusiasm. He encourages woodsowners to take the long view and let their trees manage themselves rather than feeling obliged to spend time thinning and pruning. Sounds like good advice to someone as lazy as I am. I do heat with wood and agree that this is the best security as our society experience more electrical outages.
I am uncomfortable with his promotion of grazing animals in woods because I love the woodland flowers so much. He acknowledges that years of sheep grazing in some woods has meant no flowers, then relates how they have come back after the grazing was ended as if there were no longterm consequences. Yet he can't understand why he's had little luck getting goldenseal to grow. My point is that the rare plants (and birds) are rare because they cannot tolerate the disturbed conditions in working woods and we need to ensure some wild forests remain. ( )