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A very good friend of mine gave me "Sand County Almanac." I asked him
if he could recommend any good environmental books that I might learn
from
He ran into a bookstore he bought it for me
and he came out he said this is the only book that you need to read.
Things came together when I read "Sand County Almanac." It just hit me like a ton
of bricks you know
I thought, you know, this guy knows what he's talking about. I was just transfixed
I could not stop reading. And I probably read it three or four times that
weekend. It was a life-changing moment. I wish I had found him years
sooner. I realize that this was perfect this was just what the doctor ordered.
He really inspired me. Now I perhaps read "Sand County Almanac" once a year.
And I'm probably can go home and read it again after this talk
"The Distilled wisdom of a lifetime." John Tallmadge
Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac"
is arguably the most important book in the history of conservation.
A masterful blend of science and art it continues to speak to new generations
long after the initial publication in 1949
The book was a product of a lifetime of
observation, experience and writing. Clara
played a very important role in a literary upbringing of Aldo.
She made certain that the boys
could write home intelligent letters that would
talk about their experiences and of course Aldo
this became a training ground for Aldo.
When you go back and look at his earliest writings the brilliance
is already there. These are amazing
pieces of writing for for a teenager and reveal that even at that young age he
had
a way with words that most people
just simply will never have in their life.
Leopold would write virtually every day. His prodigious output included journal
entries,
letters, articles and essays, and even the first text book
on wildlife management.
I think Leopold was a supreme craftsman.
He was a brilliant brilliant writer
and we shouldn't forget that he had
powers of communication that few people have.
And I think that was the power of the message he put across; deep concepts
but very simple expression. I think one of the reasons Leopold can
can appeal to such a range of folks
is that he was such a good writer. He's this
extraordinary fusion of science, literature
and love and humility. And the reason that we love "Sand County Almanac"
the book is that it is this wonderful merger of a lifelong
knowledge of science and systems but
but expressed through art through finally craft word, through analogy and
metaphor
analogy and metaphor not necessarily the things that most scientists
gravitate to and yet Leopold made it okay to do that.
Aldo Leopold really found his voice as
a writer in the late 30s, early 1940s
when he began writing series of
essays about his experiences 30 years earlier
in the southwest. As Leopold attempted to organize these essays into a book for
publication
he corresponded with a former student Albert Hochbaum.
In their exchange letters Hochbaum advised Leopold
to put more of himself into the book and to show how his thinking
had evolved. One of dad's students, Albert Hochbaum,
said, now Aldo you've got to admit
that you made some mistakes and you've got to write about it.
Hochbaum said you tend to be kind of preachy
here but you too have blood on your hands
you use to campaign for the erradication of predators and
two weeks later Leopold sent him "Thinking Like A Mountain"
which is the pivotal essay
in "A Sand County Almanac" as a whole.
Over a period of six years Leopold submitted versions of his manuscript
then titled "Great Possessions" to several publishers.
Time and time again it was rejected.
Finally in April of 1948 Oxford University Press notified Leopold
that his manuscript had been accepted for publication.
We heard
that week before spring vacation
that it had been accepted by Oxford Press and he was just delighted.
So that week we got all packed up just mother, dad and I went up to the shack
to plant pines.
It was on that visit to the shack
that Leopold spotted a fire on a neighbor's
grass and rushed to help put out the fire.
He suffered a heart attack and died but the book that he had written
and that had been accepted just days earlier was published substantially as
he had submitted it
as "A Sand County Almanac" in 1949.
Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" when it was finally published would sell
very modestly. The first twenty years after the book was published
I think it's sold about 20,000 copies.
The real take off period came with the publication of a mass market paperback
edition
in the late 1960s. Suddenly it sold millions.
Suddenly the baby boom generation, everybody had a copy of "A Sand County Almanac" in their
backpack.
And now it has sold I think three million copies
and of course it is
still selling.
I'm somehow got ahold of copy of "Sand County Almanac,"
Read it. Thought, well this is interesting. There are some things in here I don't agree
with him on
and set it aside. Then a couple years later read it again.
Well you know there's more here than I thought.
I think I was in the hospital once it had nothing to do and so I read it again
and I thought this really
really something.
I've been rereading the "Sand County Almanac"
and when I first read it it was a revelation
and a confirmation and I've
grown so much smarter since last time I read it from cover to cover that
I'm just amazed at how its improved.
I read "A Sand County Almanac" again
and some of the key points like the land ethic
those things literally jumped out of the page at me.
I was illuminated. But it wasn't until
thirty years later when I started really working as a US senator on wilderness
issues
that I picked it up again and I read it and was deeply touched by it.
I thought the book was a pretty good book but I I wasn't that knocked out by
the writing
and it was only after I had done a lot of writing that I realized how
astonishing the writing is.
Took me being ready to read it at those deeper layers
before I couldn't really absorb what Leopold was all about.
Every time you read it you take away something new because you're at a new point
in your life.
I go back and I read you know the same passages the same essays
over and over again and they force you think. You always find something that's
applicable
to an issue that we're facing today. She remains kinda the new secular
Earth Bible that you can refer back to at all times to get clarity
With time "A Sand County Almanac"
began to reach readers not only across the country
but around the globe.
I think Aldo Leopold's really biggest contribution to humanity has
been that
has been able to convey in a language and in a spirit that is
a really quite global. It's not about just idea and thoughts about the environment
and human beings.
It's all about the
way it was expressed the language. Sand, sank,
sables in the sand, sand county maybe. Do you remember the title in
English
"A Sand County Almanac." Well sorry. It's the same, "Sand County Almanac."
This one would sell even the in the railroad station. It was very well sold
in France. And the the most important thing is
articles, like "Thinking Like A Mountain"
and is chosen in is to say that they
going into a Chinese middle school textbook, which means that every
Chinese middle school student is
reading Aldo Leopold.
Now, every year communities across the nation
come together for public readings of "A Sand County Almanac"
Decades after its publication it continues to inform and delight its
readers
and to make a difference on the land. At times it's ironic that Aldo Leopold is
most known as a writer
because Leopold always understood that it was actually the
actions on the ground that would ultimately make the difference. I think
that's why I love that book so much because
everything he was talking about he made real through what he was
actually doing and reading him and then discovering how he lived
will take his words and sink it in your heart.
"A Sand County Almanac has sold more than 3 million copies and is available in 13 languages
Produced by Aldo Leopold Foundation U.S. Forest Service Center for Humans and Nature Funding by Kohler Trust for Preservation U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service