One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.

Never did we plan the morrow, for we had learned that in the wilderness some new and irresistible distraction is sure to turn up each day before breakfast. Like the river, we were free to wander.

Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic determinism is so habitual to Americans in discussing public questions that one must speak in the language of compound interest to get a hearing.

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.

The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.

Patriotism requires less and less of making the eagle scream, but more and more of making him think.

Conservation viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.