Coleman Rohde

12/13/21

Wisconsin

Marshland Energy

Leopold begins the chapter by elegantly describing the morning routine of the great

Winsconsin marsh. First, the wind brings a mist that covers the great marsh just above the

Tamaracks to the point where they are barely visible. Then the hunter and their pack of dogs

sound faintly breaking the silence. Next all sounds become heard as the birds trumpet, the frogs

croak and the animals make their various cries. But the origin of the sounds remain hidden until

the birds are illuminated from the fog as it gradually disappears. Time changes the bog as it was

once an ancient lake but there still seems to be regularity. After all the cranes stay each spring

and live and die on the marsh.

Leopold then argues that in nature lies beauty so extreme that it can’t be described in

human words. Leopold uses the crane as an example to demonstrate this point. Sportsman and

Ornithologists throughout time have consistently recognized this quality in cranes. The khan has

palace cranes, specifically attracting them with sown grain. Bengt Berg devoted his life’s work to

cranes and their migrational patterns. Leopold also asserts that the reason for naming crane

chicks as colts can’t be reasoned but must rather be experienced in order to understand.

The reduction of the ancient lake to the marsh was a victory of the cranes. The ancient

lake naturally drained itself but the cranes built the marsh of the residual. Atthesame time

tamarack, sedges, and other plants transformed the soil into peat.

Leopold then describes how humans have impacted the great marsh. In order to make

way for hay farmers had torched the great marsh in order to reduce it as well as the cranes which
pestered their crop. They eventually took effort to establish farms not only around the marsh but

in it, redirecting water in the process. Eventually, however, the farmers realized their mistake as

frosts destroyed their profits and peat beds caught fire and many moved out. Eventually, the

farmers came to be more mutualistic with nature, flooding the planes in pursuit of cranberries.

The Sand Counties

Leopold discusses how economists tend to search for regression, submarginality, and

institutional rigidity when seeking out an area to study. The sand counties, being quite poor,

serve as a golden playing field for these economists. When the people of the sand counties were

incentivized to leave, most of them chose to stay. Leopold, intrigued, bought a sand county farm.

Leopold has come to doubt the economists who do not seem to see the promise of the lupines.

The sands bring all sorts of unordinary and exciting flora. Pasques grow on the gravel,

the sandwort caps the hilltops with a white before the lupines bring color, the linaria pops out of

the sandblow. The fauna, especially of birds, is also quite unique. The clay colored sparrow lives

for the jackpines of the sand, and the sandhill crane escapes competition in its unique habitat.

However, other birds' reasons for being are not quite as obvious. Woodcocks prefer the sand for

nesting but at a seeming disadvantage as earthworms prefer a soil of a higher caliber. The

woodcock's reason to settle on the sand might have to do with its short stature and its

simultaneous need for dance. The sand provides the perfect stage for performance.

Odyssey

Leopold discusses the origins of a break in the limestone rock. The break in the limestone

is a remnant of a root on an oak. In the same year the oak produced a flower which produced an

acorn which fed a deer, and fed a native. Leopold personifies the atom which the oak took up and

he calls “X” and asserts that it was able to see and feel the cycles of feast and famine. When the
native left the plains X was transformed by the fall of its oaken form as it was sucked up by

bluestem which reconstituted it into a leaf. In that form it aided the plover’s eggs by providing

shadow. When the plover’s left for Argentine, the mouse cut X and buried its leafen form in an

underground nest and X was once again reclaimed by the soil. This continued many times over

with various flora and fauna until X a fire consumed the prairie and reduced it to ash. Eventually,

however, the prairie came back, fueled by its nitrogen stores but slowly X continued to lose

altitude as it was carried by mice, foxes, and beavers. Eventually X took a rest in the sea.

So begins the adventures of Y, another atom pulled from rock. Now in the presence of a

farmer Y took cyclical trips through wheat. The pigeons tried to peck, the bugs tried to bite, so

the farmer retaliated at the pigeons and the bugs bit back harder destroying the wheat. When the

wheat farm came to an end Y had already traveled downstream and made cycle through

waterfowl, fish, and water plants but the dams stopped advancement.

On a Monument to the Pigeon

The pigeon is gone to Winsconsin. Pigeons still exist in books, and museums but they

will never be seen anymore. Never again will the pigeon dive out of the sky and cause the deer to

run for cover or eat the blueberries of Canada. Leopold asserts that our ancestors were worse off

than we were but that we are only better off because our ancestors chose to stomp nature out in

favor of security, causing the pigeon’s decline.

However, never in a time preceding has once species mourned the demise of another like

humans do. If humans had gone extinct pigeons would not have batted an eye. A monument has

been erected in the name of the pigeon and it will tell the story of the lost pigeon to the river.

Many birds will pass by: geese, egrets, wood ducks.

 The decline of the pigeon almost seemed inevitable, however, with their innate ferocity.

Like a steady fuel, once the supply of pigeons was cuty down by the pioneers, the flame went out

quickly almost without smoke.

Flambeau

Leopold discusses how many assume novelty and healthful exercise to be the value in a

trip but an experience of his with two college boys on the Flambeau has proved otherwise. The

boys were out of their element but somehow thrived. They lived on the meat of the river, and by

sun-time. They discovered the mosquito-free zones and clean-coal firewoods without a guide.

After this trip they were to go into the army and with their instatement the last bit of their

freedom washed away. The wilderness was their last taste of freedom to make mistakes and learn

from them.

When Leopold was young his father told him about the majesty of the Flambeu but now

it is fragmented by civilization. This invasion began with the Flambeau pines who were so close

to the river that they were too easily exploitable. The manufactured and synthetic log cabins

which dot the Flambeau have not their origins with the pines of the Flambeau but rather the slab

piles of Idaho and Oregon. Still remnants of the Flambeau persist in some state-protected areas.

But the advance of dams is choking the Flambeau.

Deadening

The old oak was dead as a result of human intervention. It had been girdled for the

purpose of squeezing out one last crop. Some houses seem to call to people, inviting them to

eliminate their abandonment. But girdling the oak is counterproductive, inevitably bringing more

harm to nature than one can bring to it through coexistence on a farm.