Landscape Papers"Shortly after 'Plants, Man and Life' appeared, it was reviewed in the journal 'Landscape'. This led me to J. B. Jackson, the able editor of that remarkable publication. With piquant combination of sharp criticism and flattering appreciation, he charmed out of me a series of short essays. One of these essays takes up in more detail the 'dumpheap theory' of the origin of cultivated plants. Several touch in one way or another on the acceptance of cities as places to live right in the middle of, an attitude that is part of Mexico's Spanish heritage. Three of the essays describe how I learned enough from my Mexican neighbors to have lived serenely years later in a big, moderately priced St. Louis apartment hotel for six months, as a naturalist happy in learning from our apartment windows: new things about bird life in the big city, the serpentine course (unparalleled in its loopings) of the Missouri Pacific railroad as it starts southward, the progress of small thunderheads across the city on a day of little thunder showers, the dynamics of winter sunsets when the sun is so low in the sky that the observer needs to be well over a hundred feet above the ground level to learn very much, and the heights and extents of autumnal morning fogs. I was again spurred on to study and to teach the natural history of cities along with that of seashores and spring woodlands. Some of those who liked this book have found deeper satisfactions in these 'Landscape papers'"--Page 4 of cover. |
Contents
Introduction | 9 |
The Considered Landscape | 21 |
College and the Experience of Nature | 28 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
American Anatolia annuus areas automobile autumn beaches beautiful blue Bob Callahan Boston branches bred bushes button bush carpet central century chipping sparrows close color Confederate violet cornbelt countryside crops cucurbits cultivated plants curve Dartmouth day length decade dish water early eastern Edgar Anderson effect farm farmer garden gingkoes grass green lull grow grown hills Honduras Hopi hybrids increasingly islands kernels kind Landscape Papers leaf mold learned leaves less live look maize Mediterranean Mexican Mexico Missouri Pacific railroad mongrel mountains native naturalists nature neighbors orange patio petiolaris Plains popcorn problem Pueblos river road Rosa rugosa Salvia apiana Salvia mellifera season seeds soil Southwest Spanish sparrows species spread spring woodlands squashes sunflowers tomato town trees tropics trumpet vine valley varieties various vegetation village weeds week whole wild flowers wind winter woods yellow