This book is a posthumous creation, finishing as best as may be what Thoreau had started. As such, it is a little uneven but enjoyable nonetheless. This is much more Thoreau wearing his scientist cap than his Transcendenalist hat. ( )

This volume compiles some nature writings Thoreau did late in life, which were published after his death. The book contains "The Dispersion of Seeds" and parts of manuscripts titled "Wild Fruits", "Weeds and Grasses" and "Forest Trees." It's a lovely and tedious read at the same time. Thoreau was intensely interested in plant life around Concord and made meticulous observations about how plants were naturally distributed. Most of the book details how seeds are spread by the weather and/or wild animals, the resulting patterns of growth, what types of habitat different seeds find favorable, and most interestingly, the reasons why pine woods are succeeded by oaks and oaks again by pines, if all the trees are cut down. While I find the subject matter pretty interesting and Thoreau's writing more accessible than I had expected, at the same time the lists of plants and brief descriptions of how this seed is shaped, how it falls, where it falls, what percentage of it comes up in what part of the woods etc etc can get to be really dry. It was my go-to-sleep book for a week. I'm glad I read it, I admire the work that went into it, but I'm not sure if I will deliberately read it again.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how modern-sounding Thoreau's voice is. Yet certain details distinctly reminded me that I was reading the words of a man who lived in another era. He often proclaimed things from scientific circles that have long since been proven otherwise. Was very skeptical of accounts of seeds being recovered from old sites and successfully germinated after tens or hundreds of years- discredited them entirely. And every now and then casually mentioned the numerous pigeons that fed on certain seeds or fruits. I wondered at this for a bit, then a mention of them flying off elsewhere to be shot in great numbers made me realize: he was speaking of the passenger pigeon! Which is now extinct.

Note: the book was compiled and published in 1993, Thoreau actually wrote the studies between 1856 and 1861. There are extensive notes in the back of the book describing how the writings were compiled, identifying quotations, individuals or incidents Thoreau mentioned, and making note of where his self-editing was unclear (passages he might have meant to delete or insert in different places, etc.)

from the Dogear Diary ( )

Thoreau's writings as a dedicated scientific observer, studying nature and nature's laws for their significance to mankind.

From Publishers Weekly
At his death in 1862, naturalist Thoreau left behind a dozen notebooks and other materials. From those hard-to-decipher handwritten pages, Dean, the editor of the Thoreau Society Bulletin , has rescued an unexpected treasure--Thoreau's scientific study of how one plant species succeeds another through seed dispersal. The book includes several shorter pieces, but "The Dispersal of Seeds" is what will lure Thoreau buffs and students. The philosopher of Walden emerges as a dedicated scientific observer, revealing how wind, weather and animals move seeds about to produce new plants. Specialists will appreciate the perspective this book gives on Thoreau's place in the science of his time, refuting as he does the then-prevalent notions of immutability of species and the spontaneous generation of plants. The real treat is for general readers: a chance once again to hear Thoreau's precise, wonderful voice as he roams his beloved woods and finds "the very earth itself as a granary and a seminary." The book is a dazzling debut for Island's Shearwater imprint. Illustrated.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
For Thoreauvians, botanists, agriculturalists, and scholars of 19th-century America, this book represents nothing less than a triumph of editorial skill and integrity over conventional wisdom. A study of plant ecology using Darwinian theory, Faith in a Seed is one of the more interesting books published in our time, so felicitously does it give readers a fresh dose of all that makes Thoreau such a major figure in American letters. The holograph of The Dispersion of Seeds , Thoreau's last major project (as well as the manuscript of Wild Fruits, selections of which appear here along with two other writings probably intended for the title volume) was dismissed by most of the scholars who even knew of it as being taxonomically suspect, uninterestingly concrete, and "best left unpublished." How wrong. It is, in fact, the book that latter-day Thoreau admirers have often wished he had written: sensual, acute, intricate, and altogether fascinating, a text that should cause scholars to reevaluate their assessment of an important writer. A fundamental acquisition for all collections.
- Mark L. Shelton, Athens, Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.