To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Twenty centuries of 'progress' have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high opinion of himself, but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment, nor a conviction that such capacity, rather than such density, is the true test of whether he is civilized.

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?

There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.

Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.

Wildflower corners are easy to maintain, but once gone, they are hard to rebuild.

I do not imply that this philosophy of land was always clear to me. It is rather the end result of a life journey.