“In 1935, the famous conservationist Aldo Leopold bought a worn out farm along the Wisconsin River to live close to the land. The homestead was his grand experiment in attempting to bring life back to Dust Bowl era terrain. Over the course of more than a decade the family of seven planted nearly 50,000 trees and today their property is a lush landscape of conifers, hardwoods and prairie.
His “backyard” experiment was a part of his bigger idea that we need to develop a land ethic, that is to treat nature with the same respect we would our family or our pets. He wrote in A Sand County Almanac. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
YouTube
Thank you Kirsten Dirksen for another excellent video. Aldo Leopold is one of my heroes. Search our blog for many related stories about how to restore degraded land, build soil, grow forest gardens, etc. Good farmland is now extremely scarce and expensive. With sufficient knowledge and hard work you can build up a very nice homestead on low cost, poor quality land.