Excerpt
IN a 1945 address that he called “The Outlook for Farm Wildlife,” Aldo Leopold assessed the post-war status of the American agricultural landscape from an ecological viewpoint
“Behind [certain destabilizing] trends in the physical status of the landscape lies an unresolved contest between two opposing philosophies of farm life. I suppose these have to be labelled for handy reference, although I distrust labels:
“1. The farm is a food factory, and the criterion of its success is salable products.
“2. The farm is a place to live. The criterion of success is a harmonious balance between plants, animals, and people; between the domestic and the wild; between utility and beauty.
“Wildlife has no place in the food-factory farm, except as the accidental relic of pioneer days. The trend of the landscape is toward a monotype, in which only the least exacting wildlife species can exist.
“On the other hand, wildlife is an integral part of the farm-as-a-place-to-live. While it must be subordinated to economic needs, there is a deliberate effort to keep as rich a flora and fauna as possible, because it is ‘nice to …
Footnotes
Charles Benbrook is a private consultant, 24222 White's Ferry Road, Dickerson, Maryland 20842. This manuscript is based upon an address by Benbrook at a conference celebrating the opening of the Leopold Center. The contributions to this manuscript by Curt Meine are appreciated.
- Copyright 1991 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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