There once was a snake breeder who had two snakes he was trying to
mate. For the life of him, he couldn't get them within two feet of
each other. Frustrated, he called up the local zoologist, and explained
the situation. She hurried over, picked up the snakes and looked at
them. "You know what I would do?" she said. "See that tree over
there? Chop it down, chop off a good sized log, split the log in two,
and make two tables out of them. Put the tables and the snakes into a
cage, and let them go at it."
Well, the breeder thought that this was insane, but having no other
options, he tried it. Sure enough, a few days later he had a whole
slew of baby snakes. He called up the zoologist, and asked her how
that was possible. She replied, "Well, you see, those snakes were
adders. And everybody knows that to get adders to multiply you need
log tables."