I Love All Trees, But I Am

A Thing Is Right When It Tends To Preserve The Integrity, Stability And Beauty Of The Biotic Community. It Is Wrong When It Tends Otherwise.

One Of The Anomalies Of Modern Ecology Is The Creation Of Two Groups, Each Of Which Seems Barely Aware Of The Existence Of The Other. The One Studies The Human Community, Almost As If It Were A Separate Entity, And Calls Its Findings Sociology, Economics And History. The Other Studies The Plant And Animal Community And Comfortably Relegates The Hodge-podge Of Politics To The Liberal Arts. The Inevitable Fusion Of These Two Lines Of Thought Will, Perhaps, Constitute The Outstanding Advance Of This Century.

Our Ability To Perceive Quality In Nature Begins, As In Art, With The Pretty. It Expands Through Successive Stages Of The Beautiful To Values As Yet Uncaptured By Language.

The Last Word In Ignorance Is The Man Who Says Of An Animal Or Plant, "what Good Is It?" If The Land Mechanism As A Whole Is Good, Then Every Part Is Good, Whether We Understand It Or Not. If The Biota, In The Course Of Aeons, Has Built Something We Like But Do Not Understand, Then Who But A Fool Would Discard Seemingly Useless Parts? To Keep Every Cog And Wheel Is The First Precaution Of Intelligent Tinkering.

This Whole Effort To Rebuild And Stabilize A Countryside Is Not Without Its Disappointments And Mistakes... What Matter Though These Temporary Growing Pains When One Can Cast His Eye Upon The Hills And See Hard-boiled Farmers Who Have Spent Their Lives Destroying Land Now Carrying Water By Hand To Their New Plantations