THE MAN

WHO PLANTED
TREES

Jean Giono
Le discernement du leadearship est-il un art ?

C'est en tout cas un métier, celui du conseil en

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Jean Giono « L'homme qui plantait des arbres »
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THE MAN
WHO PLANTED
TREES

For the character of a human to reveal truly exceptional qualities,

one needs to have the good fortune of being able to observe his
actions over many years. If his actions are free of all egotism, if
his guiding principle is unequalled generosity, if it is absolutely
certain that no reward was sought anywhere and his ideas have
left a visible impression on the world; one has, without any doubt,
found an unforgettable character.

About forty years ago, I went on a long hike, in heights unknown

to tourists, in these ancient regions of the Alps which extend to
Provence.

5
This region is bordered to the south and south-east by the central
course of the Durance, between Sisteron and Mirabeau; to the
north by the upper course of the Drôme, from its source until Die;
in the west by the plains of Comtat Venaissin and the foothills
of Mont Ventoux. It encompasses the whole northern part of the
department of Basses Alpes, the southern part of the department
of Drôme, and a small enclave of the department of Vaucluse.

At the time, when I undertook my long stroll through this desert,

at 1200 to 1300 meters above sea level, it was a barren and
monotonous area. Nothing but wild lavender grew there.

I crossed this country along its largest extent and, after three
days, I found myself in a most desolate spot. I camped besides
the remains of an abandoned village. I had exhausted my water
supply the day before and desperately needed to find a source.
These buildings, even if they were just ruins, agglomerated like an
old wasps' nest, made me think that there must have been once
a well or a spring. Indeed there was a well, but all dried out. The
five or six houses, without roofs, eroded by wind and rain, the old
chapel caved in, were neat and tidy like houses and chapels in
inhabited villages, but all life had disappeared.

It was a beautiful and sunny day in June, but on these high plains
without shelter, a brutal wind blew unbearably. As it soughed
through the carcasses of these old houses, it roared like a wild
animal disturbed while feeding.

I had to break my camp and move on. After five hours, I still had
found no trace of water, and I despaired to find any. Everywhere
the same dryness, the same woody herbs. In the distance, I
thought I saw a small black silhouette, upright, which I took for
the trunk of a lone tree. More by chance than by determination, I
continued my way in its direction. It was a shepherd. About thirty
sheep rested close to him on the hot ground.

6
He let me drink from his water bottle, and then guided me to
his cabin, hidden behind a low mound on the plain. He got his—
excellent—water from a deep natural hole, above which he had
installed a rudimentary winch.

This man barely talked. Such is the way of loners, but one felt
that he was sure of himself and confident of his self-assessment.
It was strange in this country stripped of everything. He did not
live in a shack but in a true house made of stone, and one could
see easily where and how he had restored the ruin he must have
found there when he had first arrived there. The roof was solid
and tight. The wind blowing across the tiles made the sound of
waves washing ashore.

He kept a proper household, his dishes were done, the floor was
swept clean, his gun well greased, his soup boiling over the fire.
I also noticed that he was freshly shaved, his buttons carefully
sewed on, and his clothing had been darned with the great care
that renders the repairs nearly invisible.

He shared his soup with me, and when I oered him my tobacco
pouch, he said he didn't smoke. His dog, quiet like the man him-
self, was friendly and without baseness.

It had been silently understood right away that I would spend

the night there; the next village was still a day's march and a half
away. Furthermore, I knew the character of these villages perfec-
tly well. There are four or five, spread apart on the slopes of this
high plain amidst thickets of white oak, at the very end of the
navigable roads. They are inhabited by charburners making char-
coal. These are bad places to live. Living close to one another in
this rough climate, Summer and Winter alike, the families being
cramped together in close quarters increases their selfishness
and leads to excessive unreflected ambition in their constant
desire to escape these places.

7
The men bring the coal to the city in their trucks and then return.
Even the best qualities are eroded by this perpetual contrast
bath. The women are embittered, always bearing a grudge. These
people compete about anything, from the coal sale to the place
on the church bank, about the virtues of the women and the vices
of the men, and about the general fray of the vices and the virtues,
without rest. On top of that, the equally incessant wind strains the
nerves. Suicide is epidemic, and there are many cases of mad-
ness, nearly always deadly.

The shepherd, who did not smoke, fetched a small bag from
which he poured a pile of acorns onto the table. He began exami-
ning them closely one after the other, separating the good ones
from the bad ones. I smoked my pipe. I oered to help. He told me
this was his business. And indeed, seeing with how much care
he performed the job, I did not insist. That was our whole conver-
sation. Once he had separated enough of the good acorns, he
counted them in packets of ten, eliminating in the process the
smaller ones or those that were slightly chapped, for he truly scru-
tinized them. Once he had lying one hundred perfect acorns in
front of him, he stopped and we went to bed.

The company of this man instilled peace. I asked him the next
morning whether I might stay and relax the whole day there at his
place. He found it completely normal, or, more exactly, he gave me
the impression that nothing could disturb him. I didn't really need
the rest, but I had become curious and wanted to know more. He
collected his flock of sheep and led them to their pastures. Before
leaving, he dunked the small bag in which he had collected the
carefully chosen and counted acorns into a bucket of water.

I noticed that instead of a stick he carried an iron rod, thick like a

thumb and about a meter and a half long. I just leisurely walked
along, on a path parallel to his. The pasture of his animals was

8
in a small depression. He left his dog in charge of the flock and
climbed back up to me. I feared he would reproach me for my
intrusion, but not at all: it was his usual route and he invited me to
accompany him if I had nothing better to do. He walked for about
two hundred meters.

When he had arrived where he had wanted to go, he planted his

iron rod into the ground. In the hole he put an acorn, which he
then covered again. He was planting oaks. I asked him if this
land was his property. He answered in the negative. Did he know
whose land it was? He didn't know. He assumed it was common
property, or maybe it belonged to someone who didn't care about
it. He didn't worry about knowing the landowners. In this way, he
planted extremely carefully one hundred acorns.

After we had eaten at noon, he began again to sort his seeds. I

must have asked insistingly enough, for he answered my ques-
tions. For three years he had been planting trees in this solitude,
more than one hundred thousand acorns. Of these one hundred
thousand, twenty thousand had grown. He expected to lose half
of these twenty thousand, due to rodents or simply the unpredic-
tables in the nature of destiny. Remained ten thousand oaks that
would grow in this place where there had been nothing before.

At that point, I suddenly wondered how old this man was. He

was visibly older than fifty years. Fifty-five, he told me. His name
was Elzéard Bouer. He once had owned a farm in the valley. He
had accomplished his life. He had lost his only son, then his wife.
He had retreated to this lonely place, where he was content and
happy to live a slow life, with his sheep and his dog. He had come
to the conclusion that this country was dying for want of trees.
He added that, since he had no more important business, he had
decided to remedy this situation.

As I was at that time, despite my youth, leading a solitary life, I

9
knew that the heart of a recluse had to be touched delicately.
Nevertheless, I made a mistake. Precisely because of my young
age, I could not help but imagine the future according to myself
and a certain search for happiness. I told him that in thirty years,
these ten thousand oaks would be magnificent. He answered
simply that, if God lent him life, in thirty years, he would have
planted so many others that these ten thousand would be like a
drop of water in the sea.

Moreover, he was already experimenting with the reproduction

of beeches, and he had behind his house a seedbed with trees
grown from beech-nuts. Protected from his sheep by a fence
made of wire netting, they were splendid. He was also thinking
about birches for the depressions where, so he told me, there was
moisture only a few meters below the surface.

We parted the following day.

The next year, the war of 14 broke out, in which I served for five
years. An infantryman had no time to think about trees. To tell the
truth, the encounter had not lasted with me: it had been no more
than a hobby-horse, like a stamp collection, and I had forgotten it.

Discharged after the war, I found myself with only a small demo-
bilization premium, but with a big desire to breathe a little pure
air. Without an exact plan—except this one—I retraced my steps
through this barren region.

The country had not changed. But still, beyond the dead village,
I saw in the distance a kind of grey fog covering the heights like
a carpet. Since the last evening, I had been thinking again about
this shepherd tree planter. "Ten thousand oaks," I said to myself,
"occupy a really large space."

I had seen too many people die in the last five years not to ima-

10
gine easily the death of Elzéar Bouer, even more so because at
twenty, one considers anyone of fifty years to be an old man with
nothing left but death. He had not died. He was even extremely
spry. He had switched trade. He only had four sheep, but, on the
other hand, a hundred bee hives. He had gotten rid of the sheep
which put in danger his tree plantations. Because, he told me (and
I realized it), he had not worried at all about the war. He had conti-
nued imperturbably to plant.

The oaks from 1910 were then ten years old and taller than me or
him. The sight was awe-inspiring. I was literally at a loss of words,
and, as he did not talk either, we spent the whole day walking in
silence though his forest. It was, in three sections, eleven kilome-
ters long and up to three kilometers wide. Remembering that all
this had come from the hands and the soul of this man—without
technical support—one understood that man could be as eec-
tive as God, not only in the field of destruction.

He had followed his plan, as witnessed by the beeches, which

reached my shoulders, spread as far as one could see. The oaks
were thick and had grown beyond the stage where they were at
the mercy of rodents; and regarding the nature of destiny itself,
it would have to use cyclones to destroy this work. He showed
me admirable thickets of birches going back to five years, i.e., of
1915, of the time when I fought at Verdun. He had planted them
in the depressions where he suspected, with good reason, that
water was available just beneath the ground. They were tender
like youths and very determined.

The creation seemed furthermore to cause some secondary

eects. He didn't worry about it, he just very simply obstinately
continued his task. But when I descended to the village, I saw
water flowing in brooks that, within living memory, had always
been dry. It was the most impressive chain reaction that I have

11
ever had the opportunity to see. These brooks had formerly, in
ancient times, already carried water. Some of the miserable vil-
lages I have mentioned above had been built on the sites of old
gallo-roman settlements of which there were still traces and in
which archaeologists had excavated. They had found fish hooks
in places where in the twentieth century, one needed to build cis-
terns to have a little water.

The wind also disseminated some seeds. With the return of the
water, willows, osiers, grasses, meadows, gardens, flowers and a
reason for living came back.

But the transformation proceeded so slowly that it was accepted

without astonishment in the daily life. The hunters who climbed
the heights in pursuit of hares or wild boars had well noticed the
proliferation of the small trees, but they had attributed it to the
freaks of nature. Therefore, nobody disturbed the work of this
man. If they had suspected it was his doing, they would have
interfered. He was above suspicion. Who could have imagined, in
the villages and in the administrations, such perseverance in the
most splendid generosity?

From 1920 on, I visited Elzéard Bouer each year. I never saw
him feel down or doubting. And still, only God knows if God him-
self pushed him! I did not take the account of his vexations. But
one can easily image that for such a success, it was necessary to
overcome adversity; that to ensure the victory of such a passion,
despair had to be fought. In one year, he had planted more than
ten thousand maple trees. They all died. The next year, he aban-
doned the maples and returned to the beeches, which grew even
better than the oaks.

To get a better idea of this exceptional character, one must not

forget that he performed his feat in total solitude, so total that,
towards the end of his life, he lost the habit to speak. Or perhaps

12
he considered it unnecessary?

In 1933, a dumbfounded forest ranger came to visit him. This

functionary served him an order not to make fire outside to not
endanger the growth of this natural forest. This was the first time,
said this naive man, that a forest was observed to grow all alone.
At that time, he used to plant beeches twelve kilometers away
from his house. To avoid having to return each evening—for he
was seventy-five years old—he contemplated building a small
stone cabin at the place where he was planting then. He did so
the next year.

In 1935, a true administrative delegation came to examine the

"natural forest". There was a big shot from the National Forestry
Commission, an elected representative, technicians. Lots of use-
less words were spoken. It was decided to do something, and luc-
kily, nothing was done except the only useful measure: the forest
was placed under the protection of the state and it was prohibited
to go make charcoal there. It was impossible not to be subjugated
by the beauty of these young healthy trees. The forest exerted its
seductive power even on the representative himself.

I had a friend among the forestry managers, who was a member

of this delegation. I explained the mystery to him. One day the
next week, we both went to visit Elzéard Bouer. We found him at
his work, twenty kilometers away from the place of the inspection.

This forestry manager was not my friend for nothing. He knew

about the value of things. He knew when to remain quiet. I oe-
red some eggs I had brought as a present. We shared our snack
amongst us three and passed several hours in silent contempla-
tion of the landscape.

The area we had come from was covered by trees between six to
seven meters tall. I remembered how this area had looked in 1913:

13
a desert... The peaceful and regular work, the fresh mountain air,
his simple life and most of all the serenity of his soul had given
this old man an almost solemn health. He was an athlete of God.
I wondered how manyhectares more he would cover with trees.

Before we left, my friend made only a brief suggestion concerning

certain trees for which this ground might provide a healthy habi-
tat. He didn't insist. "For the simple reason," he told me afterwards,
"that this man knows more about it than I." After another hour
of walking—having mulled over the idea—he added: "He knows
more about it than the whole world. He has found a great way of
being happy!"

Thanks to this manager, not only the forest, but also the hap-
piness of this man were henceforth protected. He appointed three
foresters to enforce the protection and terrorized them such that
they remained insensitive to all bribery attempts of any loggers.

The work was endangered seriously only during the war of 1939.
The cars then ran on gas generators fueled by charcoal or wood,
and there was never enough wood. They began logging the oaks
of 1910, but the region is so far away from all trac lines that the
enterprise was a huge financial failure. It was abandoned. The
shepherd never saw anything of it. He was thirty kilometers fur-
ther away, peacefully continuing his task, ignoring the war of 39
as he had ignored the war of 14.

I saw Elzéard Bouer for the last time in June 1945. He was then
eighty-seven years old. I had returned to the desert, but now, des-
pite the dilapidated state in which the war had left the country,
there was a bus service between the valley of the Durance and
the mountains. To this relatively fast means of transport I attri-
buted my not recognizing anymore the country of my earlier
strolls. It also seemed to to me that the route made me pass by
new places. Only by the name of a village could I assert that I was

14
right in that same formerly sorry and ruined region. I got o the
bus at Vergons.

In 1913, this hamlet of ten to twelve houses had three inhabitants.

They were savage, detested each other, and lived from trapping:
they lived in about the physical and moral state of prehistoric
men. Nettles devoured the abandoned houses around them.
They were in a hopeless condition. They could only wait for death:
a situation that hardly predisposes one to virtue.

All had changed. Even the air itself. Instead of the dry and bru-
tal gusts of wind which had greeted me formerly, a soft breeze
charged with aromatic odors blew. A sound similar to that of
water came from the heights: it was that of the wind in the forests.
Finally and most astonishingly I heard the true sound of water
plashing in a basin. I saw that there was indeed a fountain, that it
was abundant, and, which touched me most, that someone had
planted a lime tree next to it, which might already have been four
years old, already thick; an undeniable symbol of resurrection.

Elsewhere, Vergons showed the traces of maintenance work for

which hope was a necessity. Hope had thus returned. One had
cleared the ruins, had cut down the dilapidated sections of wall
and had rebuilt five houses. The hamlet now counted twenty-
eight inhabitants, including four young families. The new buil-
dings, freshly plastered in roughcast, were surrounded by kitchen
gardens where there grew, mixed but neatly aligned, vegetables
and flowers, cabbage and roses, leek and snapdragons, celery
and anemones. It had become a inviting place where one would
have liked to live.

From there on, I made my way by foot. The war having just ended,
life had not yet fully recovered, but Lazarus had risen from the
grave. On the lower flanks of the mountains, I saw small fields of
barley and of rye; at the bottom of the narrow valleys there were

15
green pastures.

In no more than the eight years that have passed since then the
whole region became resplendent with health and prosperity. In
place of the ruins I had seen in 1913, there are now neat farms,
well plastered, suggesting a happy and comfortable life. The old
sources, fed by the rain and the snow held back by the forests, are
running again. Their water is caught and channeled. Besides each
farm, in groves of maple, the fountains overflow onto carpets of
fresh mint. The villages have been rebuilt piece by piece. New
people have come from the plains, where real estate is expen-
sive, and have settled in the region, bringing youth, movement,
and the spirit of adventure with them. In the streets, one meets
well-fed men and women, boys and girls who can laugh and who
have rediscovered a taste for country festivals. Including the old
inhabitants, unrecognizable since they live gently with the new
arrivals, more than ten thousand people owe their happiness to
Elzéard Bouer.

When I think that one single man, reduced to his own simple phy-
sical and spiritual resources, was sucient to turn this desert into
this land of Canaan, I consider the human condition admirable
after all. But when I account for all the unwavering nobility of the
soul and the determined generosity necessary to achieve this
result, I feel a deep respect for this old peasant without culture
who managed to conclude this work worthy of God.

Elzéard Bouer died peacefully in 1947 at the nursing home of

Banon.

16
Letter written in 1957 by French author Jean Giono regarding his
novella, to Mr Valdeyron, a water and forest conservation ocial
from the city of Digne, France:

Dear Sir,

I am sorry to disappoint you, but Elzéard Bouer is a fictional cha-

racter. My goal was to make trees likeable, or more specifically,
to make planting trees likeable (an idea that has always been
very dear to me). And judging by the results, this goal appears to
have been attained through this imaginary character. The text you
read in Trees and Life has been translated into Danish, Finnish,
Swedish, Norwegian, English, German, Russian, Czechoslovakian,
Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Yiddish and Polish. I freely give away
my rights, for all to publish. An American came to me recently,
to ask my permission to make 100,000 copies of the work for
free distribution in his country (which I granted, of course). The
University of Zagreb has produced a Yugoslavian translation. It is
one of my works of which I am most proud. It does not bring me
a cent, and that is why it is able to accomplish the very goal for
which it was written.

If possible, I would like to meet with you to discuss the practical

uses of the work. I think it's time we created a ‘tree policy’, though
the word ‘policy’ seems very out of place.

Sincerely yours,
Jean Giono

17
Perspicacity, altruism and perseverance, three qualities that
we easily associate with naiveté.

And yet... imagine if these qualities were adopted in today’s

corporate world, by our managers, in our workplaces where
business takes precedence over literature.

To any reader who truly tunes in to the story, doesn’t Jean

Giono’s hero provide solutions to motivate and unite teams
and help them to grow?

To counter mainstream ideas, to take action in our profes-

sional lives the way Elzéard Bouer did, to work for the
common good, with a purpose that is bigger than oursel-
ves – what an inspiring model for all managers, past, pre-
sent and future.

Jean Giono wrote “The Man Who Planted Trees” in 1953.

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