For the Health of the Land

Leopold, Aldo. For the Health of the Land. Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings Edited by J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle.

Aldo Leopold was most famously the author of A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949)--and rightly so. There--on the sandy Wisconsin acres that he called his own--the naturalist, activist conservationist, progressive preservationist invited the world to walk with him, letting eyes, ears, and mind traverse the land as the earth traced its annual orbit. The essays gathered here are clearly akin to those and speak with the same authorial voice.

What amused and satisfied me most was Leopold's definition of a farmer: "anyone 'who determines the plants and animals with which he lives'" (p. 10, Introduction). By that definition, happily, even I, the hapless Tumbledown Farmer, am a real farmer. So are we all. Thus, according to Leopold, you and I have a stake in and responsibility for conservation. The editors of this collection have arranged it to demonstrate a trajectory and progression in Leopold's thought toward this very conclusion. Leopold moves from advice to farmers about how to grow a "wild crop of quail, pheasants, and other farm game" to a concern with improving the aesthetic appearance of farms. In other words, the progression is from utilitarian to artistic and beautiful. Leopold's thought moves from private ownership and economic utility to artistry and "useless" beauty. Leopold's thought moves from private ownership to corporate (community) responsibility and from the preservation of diversity (which, in today's context, seems eerily prescient) by conserving all of the individual species now available (e.g., in the essay entitled "What is a Weed?") to the integrity of the whole, or what Leopold calls the land-health ethic. But of course that is the point. Truth is beauty--and when you are talking about the natural world, the whole is worth more than merely the sum of its parts. And it takes concern for the whole--not just for stopping runoff and erosion, or for economic profit, or saving a particular species.

Leopold almost makes me imagine that it will be possible in our little suburban addition to re-introduce quail. If every "farmer" in the addition were to let pasture grow at the margins and in the collective easements that connect each property to the others--and if we worked together to add cover (there is, after all, a row of white pines on the edge of my property), to constrain feral cats, to feed in winter. Just imagine the "wildlife refuge" this little suburban enclave might support.

Maybe one day we'll join Leopold in writing an almanac of the suburban housing addition.

Voluntary Simplicity

Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (Revised edition)

The first edition of this book was published in 1981 and it is as relevant today as it was in the decade of the "Bonfire of the Vanities." We hardly lead simpler lives today than we did then, even with the high price of gas and the sudden renewal of interest in "stay-cations" as opposed to vacations. While I agree with the basic premise that we should live deliberate, intentional, purposeful, simple lives--I wanted something more than the philosophical generalizing that I found in the book. Maybe it is me; maybe it is my particular situation--but I was looking for something more from a book with such a sterling reputation. While it is true that "the particular expression of simplicity is a personal matter," it isn't very helpful for the creation of a simple life of my own just to say so. I want many examples of simple lives well lived, not just generalizations about the imperative to live simply. I suspect, even with this "personal matter," that we can be more specific. I think a simple life is by definition agrarian and therefore I find much better descriptions (and simpler, with less philosophical gobbledygook) of such a life in the works of Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon. This book, now something of a cult classic and inspiration for others (you'll see it in many a bibliography, so it is something you "should" read), is worth the time if you can find it, and if you can find the book in the library. I don't intend to purchase a copy for myself, but I may stand in line at the library to recall it and read it again in the future--and maybe then I'll find something more to like.

The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge, by Wendell Berry with photos by Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Shoemaker & Hoard, 1991.



I read this book back in April while on Spring Break with the family at Clifty Falls State Park (YouTube video of Clifty Falls) just west of Madison, Indiana. The book was a good and constant companion to the rocky cliffs, steep climbs, winding trails and waterfalls of the springtime park. The natural beauty accompanied by the words of Wendell Berry was a much needed respite. The book has the high quality writing that I've come to expect of Wendell Berry, not his best work by far, but appropriate to the physical setting and as always provocative in the best sort of way. The book was written to "save Kentucky's Red River Gorge from destruction"--i.e., to prevent the damming of the river and the drowning of the gorge--and that utilitarian motive (having been written for a useful purpose) casts a shadow and adds an artifice to the literary work that is rarely seen in Berry's poetry and fiction. That and the distance the book travels from Berry's usual topic--good land poorly farmed--makes for some dis-ease, at least for this reader.

Despite the minor criticism (that the book, though well suited to what it is, isn't what I had hoped or even as good as the greatest of Berry's works), the book offers descriptions and photos of the Red River Gorge that show it at its best (though I have never seen it). I imagine from Meatyard's photos and Berry's prose that it is the same sort of place that Clifty Falls once was, before Clifty Falls became overrun by the tourism (I was one of the tourists) that comes with the development of a place for "recreation," the establishment of a lodge and "easy trails" and paved roads along the gorge. Clifty Falls also suffers from having a coal fired power plant at its entrance, the stacks of which obscure the view and the smoke from which is enough to make even a healthy lung wheeze. (See the next post for the view from a cell phone camera.)

It is when the beautiful simplicity of the prose matches the austerity of what is described, the frugality of the words matching the extravagance of the "trout lilies, rue anemones, trailing arbutus" that Berry is at his finest. Those--and the places where he skewers the tourist-eye-view, regrets both the organizations that oppose and defend the dam, and that would destroy and preserve the gorge, and does battle with the likes of the mindset of the Army Corps of Engineers--are that places where the Wendell Berry we appreciate most comes into view.

Not the best book in the Berry bibliography. If you've never read Berry, don't start with this book. But if you are taking a tourist trip to see a "natural wonder" some day soon, pack this little reminder of sanity along. Oh the difference he'll make in the way you view the rocks and trees!

Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle

F. Herbert Bormann and Stephen R. Kellert, eds. Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle. Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1991.



In addition to the dated references in a work now 16 years old, this book suffers from the usual shortcomings of academic essay collections. The essays are disconnected and poorly coordinated, being loosely arranged around the three-part theme of ecology, economics, and ethics. The essays are uneven in quality and accessibility; in other words, the book wants the professional editing to be a book. Though most of the authors are notables in the area of ecology and environmental science, few are as well versed in either economics or ethics, so the treatment is often highly technical in its arguments in one of the three areas, but bedeviled by generalities and unfounded assertions in the next. The essays range over a broad swath of issues related to environmental conservation, from biocide (the human-caused mass extinction of thousands of species; the "death of birth") to proposals for financing conservation in five sections: Species Diversity and Extinction, Modern Agriculture, Environmental Values, Pollution and Waste, and Market Mechanisms.

So, why is Tumbledown reviewing the book? First, because a few of the essays are by themselves worth the price of admission. Among these are the essays by Wes Jackson ("Nature as the Measure for a Sustainable Agriculture"; author, Becoming Native to This Place) and David Pimentel ("The Dimensions of the Pesticide Question"; author, CRC Handbook of Pest Management in Agriculture, Second Edition, Volume I). The opening essay, on biodiversity, by Edward O. Wilson (author, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth) also falls into this category, as does Paul H. Connett's "The Disposable Society." The latter, along with sections of the essays on groundwater and wind, had Tumbledown asking whether the next person who unknowingly throws away a flashlight battery be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. (Or is that "crimes against biology"?) Many of the concerns that were front and center in the late 80's have now faded from the public eye (e.g., the landfill crisis and acid rain). That doesn't mean that they have faded from importance. Others have become more glamorous (e.g., global warming, via Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"). This pattern of awareness and response is actually graphed in the essay by Gene Likens (p. 142; author, Long-Term Studies in Ecology: Approaches and Alternatives). Second, Tumbledown would like to see several of the essays updated. Connett's essay on "The Disposable Society," for example, provides model examples of local community and civic initiatives for reuse and repair (reusables), toxic waste exchange (toxics), composting (compostables), separation and upgrading (recyclables), and screening of mixed waste for landfills (the rest). What is the status 16 years later of these model programs? Tumbledown wonders. And are the only effective responses those devised by governments and civic organizations? In Tumbledown's humble opinion all is lost if the response is dependent on governmental action and the will of our political leaders. So is there a place for individual action by those who are convinced of the need to live according to St. Francis of Assisi's way of voluntary poverty? Is there room for "freegans" (dumpster divers) who strive to reduce their "carbon footprint," coordinating their efforts in informal, internet-based communities? Have we eliminated non-reusable packaging yet? (Of course not.) In other words, it would be helpful to have an update of the status quaestionis of this academic debate and another list of best practices and bibliography of works published on this topic in the intervening years.

Still, if you can find it, this book is worth the read. It isn't quick or easy going, but it is definitely provocative.

Lawn Humble, Like a Bad Neighbor

Tumbledown is a bad neighbor. He does not employ the ubiquitous (in suburban Indiana) orange-green-white trucks from LawnPride to apply their tank full of "treatments" to his lawn. He does not ask whether the products are "safe" for his rabbits to eat or his children to play on. He sees the man in the truck don elbow-length (green!) latex gloves to handle the stuff. He knows that it is designed to keep his home free of ants (kill them dead), and spiders, and other "pests." (Oh, my!) He knows the chemicals kill the worms and the grubs. And he does not have to ask what happens to the nitrogen from the excess fertilizer when it rains. He sees the street drains, and knows they run to the White River, and on into the Ohio, and the Mississippi, and down into the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone."

How does Tumbledown keep his lawn green? He welcomes the jumble of life. (But he squashes spiders that make their way inside.) He lets the larger eight-legged ones go free to spin their webs under the eaves. He enjoys the chirp of the crickets in early October, and the mantis as she makes lunch of the other pests.

What is the result of not spraying weed killer or chemical fertilizer? The result is dandy-lion greens and jelly in the spring. White clover (and fixed nitrogen, nature's fertilizer!) run amok with white flowers in mid-summer. And bugs everywhere. Tumbledown's aeration comes from plants (a.k.a., weeds) with deep roots. They break up the deadpan clay that the construction company left (hardly soil at all, more like concrete), making paths for air and water to get to the roots of the grass. And the grass? It grows tall and lush without watering, even through the longest, hottest part of our mild Indiana summers.

Tumbledown's lawn is such a tragedy. (No, really!)

Problem is, Tumbledown will not be molified by corporate promises that the poisons are "approved for use on residential turf and landscapes." Approved? By whom? Rather than say "O.K." and "that must make it right and safe," Tumbledown asks why the government has the right to "approve" the spread of poison on every lawn in suburbia?

If that is LawnPride (tm), Tumbledown is glad to remain LawnHumble. If that makes him a bad neighbor, so be it.