For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings

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After helping to establish several federally protected wilderness areas and wildlife preserves in the American Southwest, the famed conservationist Aldo Leopold moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1924. There he worked for the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory, studying ways in which to make logging both more productive and less damaging. While in Madison, he also took time to write short articles for a newspaper, The Wisconsin Agriculturalist and Farmer. Many of them are gathered in this collection of previously uncollected prose pieces. Those who worked the land, Leopold believed, were best equipped to protect it; his essays touch on such matters as providing safe havens for migratory waterfowl and predatory birds, weighing the merits of artificially planted windbreaks against those of natural fencerows, and arguing that farmers should take care not to plow over plants that provide food for wildlife. Always he urges that his readers think ahead to consider the natural implications of both feast and famine. "Conservation," he notes, is keeping the resource in working order, as well as preventing overuse. Resources may get out of order before they are exhausted, sometimes while they are still abundant. Conservation, therefore, is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence or caution. Admirers of Leopold's work will find much of value--but little that will be wholly new--in these pages. --Gregory McNamee


From Scientific American
Leopold (1886-1948) was an ecologist before ecology gained much recognition. As professor of game management (now called wildlife ecology) at the University of Wisconsin, he produced many essays on the management of land--particularly farmland--in such a way as to achieve a "harmony between men and land." The 53 essays that the editors present in this book amount to a manual on conservation. They also trace the development of modern ideas on ecology. "Doesn't conservation," Leopold wrote, "imply a certain interspersion of land-uses, a certain pepper-and-salt pattern in the warp and woof of the land-use fabric? If so, can government alone do the weaving? I think not. It is the individual farmer who must weave the greater part of the rug on which America stands." Exquisite drawings by Abigail Rorer of the wild plants and animals that were Leopold's chief concern add savor to the book.


From Kirkus Reviews
A salubrious broadside of environmental essays, full of dignity and plain-spoken ethics, and a good number seen here for the first time, from conservationist icon Leopold. It is dumbfounding to learn that many of the essays in this collection, with their tinder-dry wit, their humility, and their calls to individual responsibility, were never published during Leopolds lifetime, but then neither was his Sand County Almanac (1968). Particularly valuable is the overview they give of the evolution of his thinking, from his early espousal of the land-use sensibility of Gifford Pinchot to his later urgings to protect land health and biodiversity. All of the pieces suggest ways private landowners might go about conserving their land. Sometimes Leopolds tone is folksy, as in the article on starting his own hunting cooperative; other times it is practical, as in the little gems he wrote for the Wisconsin Agriculturalist and Farmer explaining how to fashion a grape tangle for overwintering quail or why a thriving woodlot, full of birds, is thus a contribution to the community and a badge of social conduct. Leopold is passionate but never flighty, always shrewdly able to explain to those who judge the worthiness of an environmental act by its human consequences sound reasons why reflooding a marsh or unplugging a ditch would benefit the landholder. The concluding essays chronicle his attempts to undo the misleading information peddled by government agricultural extension services, with their greed complex, monoculturing, and regimentation. He is a fierce advocate of a healthy landscape, one full of variety, tenderly cared for, lived lightly upon, a responsibility of landowners whose curiosity should encompass the whole biota. That would rekindle, indeed would comprise, the very satisfactions of living. Readers may dicker over whether Leopolds agronomy needs updating, but his environmental vision is as timeless now as it was ahead of the curve when he wrote it down. (Illus., not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description

Aldo Leopold's classic work A Sand County Almanac is widely regarded as one of the most influential conservation books of all time. In it, Leopold sets forth an eloquent plea for the development of a "land ethic"-a belief that humans have a duty to interact with the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise "the land" in ways that ensure their well-being and survival.

For the Health of the Land, a new collection of rare and previously unpublished essays by Leopold, builds on that vision of ethical land use and develops the concept of "land health" and the practical measures landowners can take to sustain it. The writings are vintage Leopold-clear, sensible, and provocative, sometimes humorous, often lyrical, and always inspiring. Joining them together are a wisdom and a passion that transcend the time and place of the author's life.

The book offers a series of forty short pieces, arranged in seasonal "almanac" form, along with longer essays, arranged chronologically, which show the development of Leopold's approach to managing private lands for conservation ends. The final essay is a never before published work, left in pencil draft at his death, which proposes the concept of land health as an organizing principle for conservation. Also featured is an introduction by noted Leopold scholars J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle that provides a brief biography of Leopold and places the essays in the context of his life and work, and an afterword by conservation biologist Stanley A. Temple that comments on Leopold's ideas from the perspective of modern wildlife management.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Aldo Leopold's classic work A Sand County Almanac is widely regarded as one of the most influential conservation books of all time. In it, Leopold set forth an eloquent plea for the development of a "land ethic" - a belief that people have a responsibility to treat the soils, waters, plants, and animals that collectively comprise "the land" in ways that ensure their well-being.. "For the Health of the Land is a new collection of rare and previously unpublished essays by Leopold that builds on that vision of ethical land use. It develops the important concept of "land health" - by which Leopold meant the capacity for self-renewal in nature - and the practical measures land-owners can take to sustain it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

A salubrious broadside of environmental essays, full of dignity and plain-spoken ethics, and a good number seen here for the first time, from conservationist icon Leopold. It is dumbfounding to learn that many of the essays in this collection, with their tinder-dry wit, their humility, and their calls to individual responsibility, were never published during Leopold's lifetime, but then neither was his Sand County Almanac (1968). Particularly valuable is the overview they give of the evolution of his thinking, from his early espousal of the land-use sensibility of Gifford Pinchot to his later urgings to protect land health and biodiversity. All of the pieces suggest ways private landowners might go about conserving their land. Sometimes Leopold's tone is folksy, as in the article on starting his own hunting cooperative; other times it is practical, as in the little gems he wrote for the Wisconsin Agriculturalist and Farmer explaining how to fashion a grape tangle for overwintering quail or why "a thriving woodlot, full of birds, is thus a contribution to the community and a badge of social conduct." Leopold is passionate but never flighty, always shrewdly able to explain to those who judge the worthiness of an environmental act by its human consequences sound reasons why reflooding a marsh or unplugging a ditch would benefit the landholder. The concluding essays chronicle his attempts to undo the misleading information peddled by government agricultural extension services, with their greed complex, monoculturing, and regimentation. He is a fierce advocate of a healthy landscape, one full of variety, tenderly cared for, lived lightly upon, a responsibility of landowners whose curiosityshould encompass the whole biota. That would rekindle, indeed would comprise, the very "satisfactions of living." Readers may dicker over whether Leopold's agronomy needs updating, but his environmental vision is as timeless now as it was ahead of the curve when he wrote it down. (Illus., not seen)