A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot… We of the minority see a law of diminishing returns in progress; our opponents do not.”

Some of my favorite writing is contained within these essays: stunning, intelligent, nostalgic, artistic, meticulously-crafted lines that continued from the first page to the last beautiful sentence. I was at once filled with wonder, then with a tragic sense of loss, moved beyond my expectations by the heartbreaking simplicity and overwhelming significance of the ideas contained within this too short book.

“If I were to tell a preacher of the adjoining church that the road crew has been burning history books in show more his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book?…

It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.”

A pivotal piece of environmentalist literature, A Sand County Almanac does many things, and all of them with extreme care and precision. The first half of the text comprises a walk through nature of sorts, snippets of life on Aldo Leopold’s farm throughout the months and seasons. Interspersed between descriptions of the various inhabitants of his farm are explorations of humankind’s—with an emphasis on the local and national—relationship with the Land.

“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Leopold, who in the latter half of this book defines in more direct terms the idea of a “land ethic”, shares within these first intimate and reflective passages his personal philosophy concerning the nature of wilderness, the biotic community as a whole, and how we as a species can be a better member of it. He does so not only through showcasing the beauty of the land and wildlife he so obviously cherishes, but through a candid look at the effect we have thus far had on the natural world.

“What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.”

Leopold does not simply philosophize whether or not we can live amongst nature and restore it, nor does he unilaterally demonize those who are imperfect members of this biotic community. He builds within the reader a great respect and understanding for the shift in mindset we must undertake in order to become better as a people, as an environmental neighbor, and as inhabitants of a planet that gives us everything.

Being myself a lover of nature, a gardener, and an Earth dweller amongst other things, this book was perfectly engineered to grab me and not let go. It has managed to dig its way under my skin, where its presence shall remain. Over the months I have spent slowly reading this book, it has sprouted within me renewed love, reverence, and fierce protectiveness of all aspects of our world. It has inspired me to continue listening to the songs of small birds who call in the night, and to cheer on the slow growing tree, to remember that I am a small, important piece of a much grander whole. show less

4.5/5

A classic of environmental writing that is extremely prophetic, poetic, and ahead of it's time. Written in 1947, A Sand County Almanac was rediscovered several decades later, and provided the environmental movement in the 60's with a backbone text. Leopold was a visionary in the field to be sure, ahead of his peers in western land management when considering the intrinsic value of wild spaces and species of little marketable value.

The book is broken up into four different sections, each having their own focus and subject. It starts with a journal of Leopold's observations on his farm in central Wisconsin. This is followed by some short vignettes focusing on trips and work that he preformed in other parts of the world, and then show more Some essays on various topics of personal concern. Finally, Leopold lays out his environmental ethic, that he would care to see being used more in land management and use. Particularly, I found the passages describing the last bear in Arizona, and trip he took with his brother to the Colorado river delta in Mexico to be quite enjoyable. The essay Goose Music, which covers his philosophy that the songs of geese are no less important to future generations economic production feels especially heartfelt and sincere.

Leopold personally draws his value of the natural world through wildlife; this much is clear from passages in the book describing spaces without visible forms of fauna as bleak and empty. I think this must come from his extensive history with hunting and fishing. Indeed, much of his perspective in this book comes from that lens, which comes off as a bit dated, but certainly doesn't make his views any less poignant. He makes an interesting point about hunting being the only sport where ethics are enforced only by yourself (and God), in comparison to having an audience.

I really can't get over how modern much of this book feels. Leopold outlines his ethics for land use, and much of it would still be considered radical today. He calls for a wholesale change in land management, where self-interest no longer dominates that values of the land. He asks for a reformation of ecologic education, where there is less study of bone structures and more study of relationships between species, including ourselves. He asks to refocus recreation away from building structures, amenities, and roads. It's a more venomous work than I remember it being, but necessarily so I think. The prose itself is mostly gentle and poetic.

It is clear that Leopold was traumatized by some of the work that he did for the Forest Service when he was young, especially when he took part in the federal mandate to kill wolves, and much of his later views are a product of that trauma. A Sand County Almanac was a keystone book when it was published, and unfortunately continues to remain that way. show less

"A Sand County Almanac" is an amazing in many ways. Written in the 1940s and published posthumously in 1949, Leopold’s writing predate the mainstream environmentalist movement of the sixties and seventies by well over a decade.

To modern readers, it may feel slow moving, a culturally unfamiliar; Leopold represents a dual character of both hunter and environmentalist, two camps often dived by a political gulf today.

As you might have heard Wes Jackson say, Leopold’s legacy was his “land ethic.” The concept that the earth might have rights, and that, as humans, we have an obligation to steward land, was prescient for a white American. Many of his ideas are still both radical and familiar today.

In this book, Leopold offers an show more insightful and biting critique of the myth of progress, on that many other thought leaders built upon in subsequent decades. show less

“Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?”
—Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac”

If there is something similar in the heart and structure of Sand County Almanac and [b:Desert Solitaire|214614|Desert Solitaire|Edward Abbey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1399583343l/214614._SY75_.jpg|234706], the two are contrasted by the distinct perspectives of Abbey and Leopold. Leopold's heart belongs to the Wisconsin land he first describes, but his descriptions of other places he has tended and lived and explored fill the reader with the same kind of reverence. Abbey has the aspect of a desert martyr, a hermit and a wanderer who believes that anyone who tries to approach the show more wilderness in a different way is twice sinning: first, for interrupting his reverie, and second, for doing the whole thing all wrong. Leopold leans more towards the quiet, spiritual, and hyper-local perspective of Wendell Berry, but is more stringent in his views: he espouses a more conservative faith that would respect the land at all costs.
All three authors offer maybe the best or only real environmental lesson: to look closer. But they ask more, they ask action: to be careful, but actively careful, not passively so; to be a caretaker. show less

Mark Twain said, “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” If you spend any time at all reading ecological literature, you will see A Sand County Alamanc referred to as one of the classics in the genre. But in this case, Twain is wrong. This is a wonderful book. Leopold has a wry style; never out-and-out funny, but enough to keep my smiling throughout much of the book. He also deploys references historical, philosophical, religious, and literary, giving the text a rich texture. But Leopold also has a deadly serious point to the book. And he makes his case well, which is why people have been reading this book for 70 years. I highly, highly recommend the book.

There are certain books in the world you can't help but try to read all in one sitting. They draw you in and you can't find your way out of the pages until you reach the final words of The and End. A Sand County Almanac is one such book, especially as an audio read by Cassandra Campbell. Hour after hour would rush by as I got lost in Aldo's world. I could hear the calling of the birds in the fields, the rattle of dried leaves in the oak trees signifying winter is on its way, and the gurgling rush of the stream as it stubbed its toes on rocks worn smooth. Leopold's observations were so warm I couldn't help but think if he were alive today, he and Josh Ritter would be friends.

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity, belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Published in 1949, Aldo Leopold is an early conservationist, following in the footsteps of John Muir. The book is arranged seasonally in the essay format of an almanac. It is focused on the natural region of the author’s home in Wisconsin. It features lovely nature writing:

“On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.”

I very show more much enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone interested in the history of conservation. show less