A Review of His Seminal Work – A Sand County Almanac

      A Sand County Almanac is a collection of writings by Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), who is said to be ‘the father of wildlife ecology’ in the United States and is credited with the creation of ‘land ethics.’ In the introduction by Barbara Kingsolver, she discusses how Leopold’s down-to-earth style of writing and talking, his respect for hard work, his “love for life in all its forms,” and his enduring humility could provide us with “a pathway to detente, [or m]aybe even progress.” (p.xiii) Kingsolver states: “A Sand County Almanac charts the path [Leopold] walked from woodsman to environmentalist, and at every turn, we can still hear the kid with a fishing pole over his shoulder.” (p.xx)

     From the book’s very first pages, Leopold is a man after our hearts. He writes: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.” (p.xxi) He explains that the book is divided into three parts: part one focuses on his and his family’s lived experiences at ‘the shack,’ part two focuses on events in his life that helped him realize that there were environmental issues that must be addressed through conservation, and part three is where he introduces his ‘land ethic.’ Leopold states: 

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. (p.xxii)

     In part one, the almanac, there is a section for each month of the year, beginning with January. Each month, Leopold writes with such vivid imagery that one can almost see what he sees in the mind’s eye and feel the emotions that he means to convey. In January, he follows the tracks of a skunk and describes the interplay between a field mouse and a rough-legged hawk. Leopold explains that the mouse seems saddened by the thaw because his carefully designed tunnels from one food source to another have disappeared and exposed him. He writes: “The mouse is a sober citizen who knows that grass grows in order that mice may store it as underground haystacks, and that snow falls in order that mice may build subways from stack to stack: supply, demand, and transport all neatly organized. To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear.” (p.4) But, the hawk who swoops down and grabs the little mouse is delighted by the thaw. “The rough-leg has no opinion why grass grows, but he is well aware that snow melts in order that hawks may again catch mice. He came down out of the Arctic in the hope of thaws, for to him a thaw means freedom from want and fear.” (p.4) He never does figure out quite what the skunk was up to, but the walk was not wasted. 

     In February, Leopold discusses an old oak that died from a lightning strike and will be used as firewood. There are several impactful statements in this section. First, Leopold opens by writing: “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” (p.6) Many of us may suffer from modern conveniences in this way. Second, is a more poetic look at the ancient sunlight that we mentioned earlier in a much more scientific way. Leopold states that his old oak “lived to garner eighty years of June sun. [And,] it is this sunlight that is now being released, through the intervention of my axe and saw, to warm my shack and my spirit through eighty gusts of blizzard.” (p.7) Third, and last, is how he recounts the years that the old oak has seen as he cuts through its growth rings. This discussion reminded me of the novel The Overstory, by Richard Powers, in wonderful and terrible ways. It is very emotional to think of the long periods of time that an individual tree can silently witness.

     In March, Leopold explains how the geese returning to his farm were a sure-fire way of knowing that spring had arrived. He writes: 

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence…But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. (p.17) 

His words have a way of making the reader want to be in nature and see it as he does; they can make us fall in love with skunks, mice, hawks, and geese. Maybe, if everyone could fall in love with nature in this way, it would not be such a fight to protect it. 

     We continue with the April floods on the farm and the peace they can bring. Leopold states: “I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood…I see our road dipping gently into the waters, and I conclude (with inner glee but exterior detachment) that the question of traffic, in or out, is for this day at least, debatable only among carp.” (p.24) Our narrator then describes the first spring ‘flower’ – the Draba – of it he writes that “it subsist on the leavings of unwanted time and space” because it grows so small and in most inhospitable conditions. (p.24) Leopold’s words can evoke emotions for even the most minuscule things. All of nature seems to come to life through him. 

     Next, he discusses the changing of the prairie lands through the story of the bur oak. He explains that before settlers came to the prairies and started farming the land, every April fires would run across the land leaving only “scattered veterans, known to the pioneers as ‘oak openings,’ consisting of bur oaks.” (p.25) But, after the settlers plowed the land and stopped the fires, the forest began to grow without hindrance. He quotes John Muir, a native of Wisconsin, as stating: “As soon as the oak openings were settled, and the farmers had prevented running grass-fires, the grubs [roots] grew up into trees and formed tall thickets so dense that it was difficult to walk through them, and every trace of the sunny [oak] ‘openings’ vanished.” (p.28) And, the Wisconsin prairie was changed forever. Leopold concludes his April writings by describing the “sky dance” of the woodcock which he considers great nightly entertainment. 

     Throughout the summer months of May, June, July, and August, Leopold continues to regale us with tails of the sights and sounds of his farm, along with the thoughts that they evoke. While fishing on one June afternoon, he recounts:

I sit in happy meditation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. (p.37)

Though Leopold continues by stating that he thinks eagerness to be a good thing, perhaps it would serve us better to think through our actions a bit more before seizing the world around us. 

     One example of these hasty decisions that might “contain a hook” is discussed in July. The author describes the “prairie birthday” of a small triangle of Silphium plants left behind from the native prairie lands in the corner of a graveyard near his farm. He explains that these sunflower-like plants used to cover the prairie, but now these in the cemetary are “the sole remnant” perhaps in the whole “western half of the country.” (p.42) Evoking a vivid and heart-wrenching scene, Leopold writes: “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…When I passed the graveyard again on 3 August, the fence had been removed by a road crew, and the Silphium cut.” (p.43) He goes on to explain that most passers-by will never notice the end of the Silphium, as they have not noticed the disappearance of so many other flowers and plants because “[w]e grieve only for what we know.” (p.46) And, most of us are too busy “seiz[ing] upon whatever new thing” to notice the abundance of life at our feet. 

     In August, we are treated to a beautiful description of what can happen when we slow down and take in the scenery. Leopold recounts “a painting so evanescent that it is seldom seen at all, except by some wandering deer.” (p.48) Left by the river, this painting disappears almost immediately after being ‘painted.’ He writes: 

To view the painting…visit the bar on some bright morning just after the sun has melted the daybreak fog…The Eleocharis sod, greener than ever, is now spangled with blue mimulus, pink dragon-head, and the milk-white blooms of Sagittaria. Here and there a cardinal flower thrust a red spear skyward. At the head of the bar, purple ironweeds and pale pink joe-pyes stand tall against the wall of willows. And if you have come quietly and humbly, as you should to any spot that can be beautiful only once, you may surprise a fox-red deer, standing knee-high in the garden of his delight. (p.49)

     The months of September, October, November, and December celebrate fall and the start of winter on the farm. In October, Leopold discusses his proclivity for waking up early to survey the goings-on on his farm. He states: 

Getting up too early is a vice habitual in horned owls, stars, geese, and freight trains…Early risers feel at ease with each other, perhaps because, unlike those who sleep late, they are given to understatement of their own achievements…Like many another treaty of restraint, the pre-dawn pact lasts only as long as darkness humbles the arrogant. (p.55-56)

And, having myself, on occasion, had the privilege of witnessing the world just before it wakens en masse, I too can attest to the quiet superiority of this time of the day. 

     In November, while describing the “month of the axe,” Leopold gives us a glimpse of his opinions on philosophy: 

We classify ourselves into vocations, each of which either weilds some particular tool, or sells it, or repairs it, or sharpens it, or dispenses advice on how to do so; by such division of labors we avoid responsiblity for the misuse of any tool save our own. But there is one vocation – philosophy – which knows that all men, by what they think about and wish for, in effect weild all tools. It knows that men thus determine, by their manner of thinking and wishing, whether it is worth while to weild any. (p.63-64)

We decide by our thinking and wishing whether we should use the shovel or the axe.

     Another poignant discussion that takes place in November is about his farm woodland, which he calls “a mighty fortress.” Leopold writes: “Every farm woodland…should provide its owner with a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.” (p.68) He explains that not long after he acquired his land, he realized that his trees were infested with many different diseases and pests. But, when he looked harder, he realized that those ‘diseases’ and ‘pests’ allowed for all manner of other life to flourish on his farm. He states:

Many other kinds of wildlife depend on tree diseases. My pileated woodpeckers chisel living pines, to extract fat grubs from the diseased heartwood. My barred owls find surcease from crows and jays in the hollow heart of an old basswood; but for this diseased tree their sundown serenade would probably be silenced. My wood ducks nest in hollow trees; every June brings its brood of downy ducklings to my woodland slough. All squirrels depend, for permanent dens, on a delicate balanced equilibrium between a rotting cavity and the scar tissue with which the tree attempts to close the wound…But for diseases and insect pests, there would likely be no food in these trees. (p.72)

A lovely example of learning about the necessity for balance and biodiversity!

     From December I share a quote that I hope inspires you as much as it does me to do what we can with what we have to help. Leopold writes:

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree – and there will be one. (p.76)

     In Part II, “Sketches Here and There,” Leopold describes various moments in his younger life that led him to believe in the importance of conservation. The section is divided into several states and territories in which Leopold lived or spent his time. While in Wisconsin, he describes the feeling of seeing cranes “on the great marsh.” (p.89) Leopold states:

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 quality of cranes lies, I think, in this higher gamut, as yet beyond the reach of words. (p.90)

Part of what gives Leopold this feeling about the crane is its place in history: “He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.” (p.90)

     Throughout his journeys, Leopold seems to recognize the importance of preserving the plants and animals in nature as he witnesses their diminishment or extinction. He writes of a monument to the end of pigeons in Wisconsin and of learning a lesson about overhunting in Illinois and Iowa. In Arizona, he watched the light going out of a wolf’s eyes after shooting it and recounts the slaughter of the last grizzly bear. He laments the clearing of the last jaguar in the Delta of the Colorado, along with the disappearance of many different ‘wild’ areas. It seems that he mourns what he knew. He writes: 

It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise. Above all we should, in the century since Darwin have come to know that man, while now captain of the adventuring ship, is hardly the sole object of its quest, and that his prior assumptions to this effect arose from the simple necessity of whistling in the dark. (p.102)

It is sad to say, but as we sit here amidst the sixth mass extinction and the climate crisis, both caused in large part by human actions, it is clear that his warnings were not heeded. Hopefully, we can still learn from Leopold’s message and try to turn things around. 

     In the last section, “The Upshot,” he discusses the ‘conservation esthetic’ and introduces his ‘land ethic.’ While discussing the conservation esthetic, he describes how those who wish to preserve areas for recreation are a diverse group with varying objectives. Leopold states: 

Equally conscientious citizens hold opposite views on what it is and what should be done to conserve its resource-base…The game-farmer kills hawks and the bird-lover protects them in the name of shotgun and field-glass hunting respectively. Such factions commonly label each other with short and ugly names, when, in fact, each is considering a different component of the recreational process. These components differ wildly in their characteristics or properties. A given policy may be true for one but false for another. (p.158)

     Leopold then describes these varying ‘components of recreation’ in detail. The first component is “the physical objects that the outdoorsman may seek, find, capture, and carry away.” (p.158) He calls all such items, from animals to plants to photographs, trophies that certify that the outdoorsman “has been somewhere and done something.” (p.158) However, as Leopold states, differing trophies “differ in their reaction to mass-pursuit.” (p.159) For example, man could easily hunt a particular animal ‘trophy’ to extinction; but, we could take thousands of pictures of an area and not spoil that land for future generations. As the saying goes: “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time.”(Aliyyah Eniath) 

     Leopold continues: “[A]nother component of recreation…[is] the feeling of isolation in nature.” (p.161) Leopold explains that this feeling was becoming scarce in his own time, and this is even more the case now. He explains that this component is also one whose “mass-pursuit” ruins it by “dilut[ing] the opportunity for solitude.” However, he contrasts this component with the component of “fresh air and change of scene,” which holds the same value even when the ‘wilderness’ area is shared by many. (p.162)

     A fourth component of recreation is “the perception of the natural processes by which the land and the living things upon it have achieved their characteristic forms (evolution) and by which they maintain their existence (ecology).” (p.162) Leopold beautifully explains:

The outstanding characteristic of perception is that it entails no consumption and no dilution of any resource. The swoop of a hawk, for example, is perceived by one as the drama of evolution. To another it is only a threat to the full frying-pan. The drama may thrill a hundred successive witnesses; the threat only one – for he responds with a shotgun. To promote perception is the only truly creative part of recreational engineering. This fact is important, and its potential power for bettering ‘the good life’ only dimly understood. (p.162-163)

     The last component of recreation that Leopold addresses is “the sense of husbandry.” (p.164) He explains: “It is realized only when some art of management is applied to land by some person of perception. That is to say, its enjoyment is reserved for landowners too poor to buy their sport, and land administrators with a sharp eye and an ecological mind.” (p.164) The ‘person of perception’ practicing husbandry is one that may plant a tree knowing they will never feel its shade or one that may rescue endangered animals so that future generations may look upon their majesty. To Leopold the most important aspects of the conservation esthetic are being able to adopt and encourage this ‘evolutionary perception’ and moving away from the ‘perception of recreation,’ or wilderness areas “as an economic resource.” (p.157)

     After discussing the many beneficial characteristics of wilderness areas, Leopold introduces his ‘land ethic’. He begins by defining the word ‘ethic’ and explaining ethical progression:

An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct…The first ethics dealt with the relation between individuals…Later accretions dealt with the relation between the individual and society…All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts…The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land…In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also for the community as such. (p.190-192) 

     Leopold goes on to explain that the “conqueror role is self-defeating.” (p.193) This is because the conqueror assumes he knows how everything works; but, no one understands the intricate balance behind how the world operates, and so, the conqueror inevitably fails. Leopold also discusses how the story of history tends to leave out the role that the land has played in human actions. I think he makes a very valid point when he advocates that history be “taught in this spirit [so that] the concept of land as a community [can] really penetrat[e] our intellectual life.” (p.195)

     To conclude, Leopold writes:

Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets…The key-log which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as economically expedient. 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. (p.210-211)

Leopold’s words continue to inspire us, years after they were written, to love and fight to protect the natural world around us. We are a part of nature; we are not apart from it. We must grow to understand ourselves as part of an interconnected planet, and that what we do to the natural world comes back to haunt us.

Below is an excellent video about Aldo Leopold’s life and work.