A Minnesota Forester:
“I’ve lived in the woods all my life; I learned how to cut and peel popple as a kid, helping support the family. I knew the names of all the trees and many of the other plants, and where they grew. After high school I went to a very good forestry school, and when I graduated I still knew next to nothing about the forest. I knew nothing about what makes the forest tick; and I know damned little more now, but I’m learning some of the questions we’ll have to answer if we’re going to grow the timber we need. I knew that we can’t just keep cutting and shoving seedlings back in the ground, and expect to come back in thirty years and cut again. This forest is one of the most complicated things in the world. Every part of it affects every other part. We’ve got to find out what things affect the soil, and what the function of the different plants is, and the function of the birds and animals, and the ground water and surface water and the sun and the snow and what really happens after a burn . . .

“I went to a field meeting out here to see a new control plot planting. It was all very neatly done, the trees were planted in nice straight rows, and it was all fine and far as it went; but I got a little tired of listening to everybody congratulate each other. Finally I said, ‘Well, now what has really been done here? What do we know about this plot of land? I don’t even see any pits dug, to see what this plot is like below the surface. After all, the most valuable tool a forester can own isn’t a typewriter; it’s a blunt-nosed shovel.’

“One of the head men stepped up and said, ‘ Who in the hell are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m nobody. My name is Mr. Nobody. But I love the forest.’ ”

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A recent book ( The Face of Minnesota, Szarkowski, 1958 ) the Humans picked up at an estate sale. There is always something to learn.