Cross-purposes

October 16. 

October 16, 2015

The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor.

I have come up here this afternoon to see  the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, that was cut off last winter, to know how the little oaks look in it. To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here.

So he trifles with nature. I am chagrined for him. That he should call himself an agriculturalist! He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 16, 1860

He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen.See September 28, 1857 ("They have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors!").