Ever get that sinking feeling when you look at a packet of seeds and realize you have absolutely no idea what you're doing? It’s okay. Most of us have been there. We buy the fancy heirloom tomatoes, poke a hole in the dirt, and hope for the best. But farmers a couple hundred years ago didn’t have the luxury of "hoping." They had to eat. That’s where one for the blackbird one for the crow comes in. It sounds like a nursery rhyme or maybe a weird indie folk song title, but it’s actually a survival manual condensed into four lines of verse.
It’s basically an insurance policy written in rhyme.
Farmers would stand in their fields, dropping seeds into the earth, chanting these words to remind themselves that nature is a thief. You aren't just planting for your own dinner table. You’re planting for the entire ecosystem, whether you like it or not. If you only plant exactly what you need, you’re going to starve when the birds show up. It's that simple.
The Arithmetic of Loss
The most common version of the rhyme goes like this: One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the cutworm, and one to grow. Think about that math for a second. You are literally planning to lose 75% of your crop before it even breaks the soil. That is a heavy psychological lift for anyone trying to make a living. Honestly, it’s a bit brutal. But it’s also the most honest piece of agricultural advice you’ll ever hear. In the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in places like Appalachia or the rural Midwest, "over-planting" wasn't a hobbyist mistake—it was the difference between a full cellar and a very long, hungry winter.
The "one for the blackbird" and "one for the crow" parts are pretty self-explanatory if you've ever seen a field after planting. Crows are terrifyingly smart. They don't just wait for the corn to grow; they watch you plant it. They wait for you to go inside for a coffee, and then they hop down and systematically unearth every single seed you just tucked away. They are the original porch pirates.
Then you’ve got the cutworm. These little guys are the silent killers. They don't eat the seed; they wait until the plant is a few inches high and then chew through the stem at the soil line, basically decapitating your harvest. If you didn't plant that third seed "for the cutworm," your fourth seed—the one intended for you—would be the one that gets clipped.
Why We Stopped Counting This Way
We live in the era of treated seeds and chemical pesticides. Most modern corn seeds are coated in bright pink or blue fungicides and repellents. This makes the one for the blackbird one for the crow philosophy feel a bit like an antique. Why plant four seeds when you can plant one high-tech, genetically optimized seed and be 98% sure it will reach maturity?
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But we’re seeing a massive shift back toward this old-school mindset. Organic gardening is exploding. Permaculture is becoming a buzzword. People are realizing that drenching the soil in "cide" (which literally means "to kill") has consequences. When you move away from heavy chemicals, the birds come back. The worms come back. And suddenly, the rhyme becomes relevant again.
I talked to a market gardener in Vermont last year who still follows a variation of this. He doesn't chant the rhyme, but he plants "sacrificial rows." He puts sunflowers on the perimeter of his vegetable patch specifically so the birds stay busy with those and leave his premium lettuce alone. It’s the same logic. He’s paying his "tax" to nature so he can keep the rest of the profit.
The Cultural DNA of the Rhyme
It’s not just about corn, though. This phrase has leaked into literature and music because it taps into a universal truth about effort and reward. The novelist Olivia Hawker even used it as a title for her historical fiction book, which captures the grit of life on the American frontier. It resonates because it acknowledges that life is hard. It acknowledges that you can do everything right—dig the hole, water the ground, pray for rain—and you still might lose most of what you worked for.
There’s a certain stoicism in it. It’s not a "woe is me" kind of thing. It’s a "this is how the world works" kind of thing. It accepts the crow as a business partner rather than an enemy.
Some variations of the rhyme add more lines. Some say "One to rot, and one to grow," acknowledging that sometimes the earth itself just eats the seed through dampness or disease. Others mention the "squire" or the "lord," reflecting old English feudal systems where a portion of the crop was taken by the landowner before the farmer even touched it. Regardless of the version, the core message is the same: the world takes its cut first.
How to Apply This to Your Modern Garden
If you’re sitting there with a small raised bed in your backyard, you might think you don't need to plant four times as much. And you’re probably right—you aren't trying to survive the winter on just what you grow. But the spirit of one for the blackbird one for the crow can actually save you a lot of frustration.
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Most beginners get discouraged because they plant five cucumber seeds, three don't germinate, one gets eaten by a beetle, and they end up with one sad cucumber. They feel like failures. But if they had started with the "four-seed" mindset, that one cucumber would be a victory. It’s all about managing expectations.
Practical Steps for the "Blackbird" Method:
First, look at your germination rates. If a packet says 80% germination, that’s under lab conditions. In your actual backyard, with the neighborhood squirrels and the unpredictable rain, it’s probably more like 60%. Plant extra. You can always thin them out later. Thinning feels like murder to some gardeners, but it's actually just fulfilling the rhyme. You're choosing the strongest "one to grow."
Second, embrace diversity. If you plant all your seeds in one perfect, vulnerable row, a single crow or cutworm can wipe out your entire season in twenty minutes. Scatter your plantings. If the blackbird gets the ones by the fence, maybe the ones by the porch will survive.
Third, stop fighting nature so hard. Sometimes, just letting the birds have their share makes for a much more peaceful gardening experience. I once spent a whole summer trying to keep robins out of my strawberries with plastic owls and shiny tape. It was exhausting. The next year, I just planted twice as many strawberries and let them have at it. I had more berries than I knew what to do with, and I didn't spend my weekends acting like a crazy person shaking a broom at a bird.
The Deeper Meaning of the Crow
Crows get a bad rap. In the context of the rhyme, they’re the villains. But in many indigenous cultures, the crow or the raven is a creator or a trickster who brings necessary change. By "planting one for the crow," you’re acknowledging your place in a much larger, much older cycle. You aren't the master of the land; you’re just a participant.
There is something incredibly grounding about that. In a world where we expect everything to be 100% efficient—where we want our Amazon packages in 24 hours and our downloads to be instant—gardening with the one for the blackbird one for the crow philosophy is a radical act of patience. It’s an admission that we aren't in total control.
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It's also a lesson in generosity. Even if it's forced generosity. You are feeding the world around you. Those blackbirds and crows have families to feed too. The cutworms are part of the soil's biomass. When the "one for the blackbird" dies, it returns nutrients to the earth. Nothing is truly wasted; it just changes form.
Moving Beyond the Garden
You can actually apply this to almost anything. Starting a business? Plant four seeds. One might fail because of the economy, one might get "eaten" by a competitor, one might just "rot" because the timing was off. But if you've put in enough effort, you'll still have that "one to grow."
It’s about resilience. It’s about building redundancy into your life. We’ve become so obsessed with "lean" processes and "just-in-time" delivery that we’ve forgotten the wisdom of the old-timers who knew that things go wrong. Things always go wrong. The rhyme isn't a warning; it's a strategy.
Next time you’re out in the dirt, or even just planning a new project, remember the blackbird and the crow. Don't be stingy with your efforts. Don't assume everything will go perfectly. Give yourself the margin of error that the old farmers used to survive.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Audit your "seeds": Look at a project you're working on. Are you counting on 100% success? Identify where your "crows" (external threats) and "cutworms" (hidden internal issues) might be.
- Over-plant by 25%: Whether it’s actual seeds or the time you allot for a task, build in the "nature tax" from the start.
- Observe the "thieves": Spend ten minutes watching the wildlife in your yard. Don't chase them away. Just see what they're after. Understanding the "blackbird" makes it a lot easier to live with them.
- Source heirloom seeds: If you want to see this rhyme in action, buy seeds that aren't chemically treated. You'll see the struggle, but you'll also see a much more vibrant, living garden.
Living by this rhyme doesn't mean you're a pessimist. It means you're a realist who understands that the "one to grow" is worth the three you lose along the way.