A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River

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A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River

4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 · rating details · 9,198 ratings · 472 reviews

First published in 1949 A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.
Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces

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Paperback, 226 pages

Published 1968 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1949)

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Feb 13, 2013 Dnicebear rated it 5 of 5 stars

In honor of re-reading this book I take an hour walk in my neighborhood before I write my review. Behind the loud barking of too many dogs and below the many paved roads and above the blooming non-native eucalyptus and acacia I hear the trilling of the junco and call of red shouldered hawk. I see light sparkling on a natural stream that flows open to the air. I smell the Douglas fir, and I feel the sun pouring out her loving warmth and light. I envision bat houses and blooming native plants at t...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Adeline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac is a compelling blend of beautiful depictions of nature, personal opinion and reflection, and political commentary. Leopold extols the beauty of nature and emphasizes how much humans are a part of it. As members of the natural world, humans have a dramatic effect on the environment, and Leopold does not shy away from this issue. Rather than advocate for total preservation of wilderness, Leopold expresses the value of hunting and using the resources present in...more Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac is a compelling blend of beautiful depictions of nature, personal opinion and reflection, and political commentary. Leopold extols the beauty of nature and emphasizes how much humans are a part of it. As members of the natural world, humans have a dramatic effect on the environment, and Leopold does not shy away from this issue. Rather than advocate for total preservation of wilderness, Leopold expresses the value of hunting and using the resources present in the wild. Hunting, he argues, is actually a way to become more attuned to the subtleties of a natural environment. Leopold's commentary about how nature should be used is one of the most striking things about the book, second only to the reverent appreciation of nature that he expresses.
Leopold depicts hunting as a meditative process in which the hunter becomes part of his environment and develops an understanding of and respect for his prey. This seems reasonable, despite my personal instinct that an environmentalist must be against hunting. Of course, Leopold cannot condone all methods of hunting. The new age of “gadgeteers” (214) and the hunters who buy their wares are not in tune with nature. Leopold wonders if they are “absorbing cultural value” or “just feeding minks” with the birds missed by their hasty shots (215). It is interesting to hear someone with such respect for nature also acknowledge that he enjoys killing animals. I didn't particularly respect this position; I am glad to hear that he does not use too many high tech gadgets, and I know that hunting is something of a national pastime, but I can't wrap my mind around it as acceptable unless it is done for subsistence. This is not to say that I haven't enjoyed wild turkey meatballs and venison sausage killed by the local hunters in my town, but hunting seems so barbaric. Yet we are animals with all the instincts that entails, and meat sure does taste good. Somehow I can only approve of hunting when it is done only with tools found in nature and made by hand. Paleolithic hunting methods are pretty much the only ones I can condone, but maybe I need to get over my romanticized ideas about nature. I have always thought that if everything we build our bodies with comes from nature, and we eat animals that have suffered and been tortured, and then we turn their cells into our cells, we are building ourselves out of sorrow. (less)

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Mar 06, 2009 Louise rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was a pleasure to read this collection of nature essays by Aldo Leopold. Leopold, a conservationist writing from northern Wisconsin in the early 20th century, presents thoughtful reflections and provoking anecdotes about the outdoors. While the second half of the book is less personal and more abstract (and at times bordering on preachy), I really enjoyed his day-to-day observations and encounters. His writing is direct and full of curiosity. Although the author and his dog are virtually the...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

How is it possible that I earned a BS in natural resources (and slipping toward an MS in wildlife) without being required to read this book? Aldo Leopold is often called the father of wildlife management. But Sand County Almanac is not a text book, with nary a glossary, set of models, or flow chart within its pages. It does contain some pretty drawings, and some spellbinding imagery. Leopold goes beyond vividly describing a scene of chopping wood or canoeing a river; he pans back to ecological c...more

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May 24, 2007 MsBrie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: truth, environmental, poetic

Are you one of those people who actually likes to read Thoreau? Well then you’re missing out! Aldo Leopold is sooooo much better. Leopold’s writing is poetic yet it also calls the common person to action. Likewise Leopold walks the walk when it comes to protecting the environment. While this book didn’t pass the random page test, if you like authors like Thoreau, then you should definitely check out The Sand County Almanac, which is the bible to environmentalists. First Page: There are some who...more

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May 16, 2007 John rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nature-lovers

Shelves: non-fiction

Passionate, thoughtful and with an eye for subtle beauty, Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (much like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring) is a Bible for the modern environmental movement. His writing combines the acute perceptivity of the scientist with the holistic understanding of the conservationist. He preached the gospel of conservation before it was popular to do so; at a time when the memories of buffalo and passenger pigeons still swarmed like fruit flies over the collective guilty consci...more

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Jan 23, 2009 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's always good to season time spent reading with a little non-fiction - Aldo Leopold's collection of essays of conservation and rural life are as pertinent today as ever. In addition to making me want to read Wendell Berry, his vignettes challenge what I think about "wilderness." It is better to leave a plot of land alone - away from the (corrupting?) grasp of humanity - or are we to make that land accessible for the enjoyment and recreation of the public? Perhaps it is just a resource for our...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Antof9 rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2004-read, americana

The "Foreword" sets up the book delightfully -- "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one 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." Now you know what you're getting into :)

I love some of his descriptions of "recycling" -- not exactly the way it's used in 2004 USA: "The sprin...more The "Foreword" sets up the book delightfully -- "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one 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." Now you know what you're getting into :)

I love some of his descriptions of "recycling" -- not exactly the way it's used in 2004 USA: "The spring flood brings us more than high adventure; it brings likewise an unpredictable miscellany of floatable objects pilfered from upriver farms. An old board stranded on our meadow has, to us, twice the value of the same piece new from the lumberyard. . . . Our lumber pile, recruited entirely from the river, is thus not only a collection of personalities, but an anthology of human strivings in upriver farms and forests. The autobiography of an old board is a kind of literature not yet taught on campuses, but any riverbank farm is a library where he who hammers or saws may read at will. Come high water, there is always an accession of new books."

His respect for and delight of his dog is truly enjoyable to read. Here is one excerpt I found particularly entertaining: "My dog, by the way, thinks I have much to learn about partridges, and, being a professional naturalist, I agree. He persists in tutoring me, with the calm patience of a professor of logic, in the art of drawing deductions from an educated nose. I delight in seeing him deduce a conclusion, in the form of a point, from data that are obvious to him, but speculative to my unaided eye. Perhaps he hopes his dull pupil will one day learn to smell." :)

This is not a book of poetry, but oh, some of the writing is so beautifully poetic! A very small part of page 95: "A dawn wind stirs on the great marsh. With almost imperceptible slowness it rolls a bank of fog across the wide morass. Like the white ghost of a glacier the mists advance, riding over phalanxes of tamarack, sliding across bog-meadows heavy with dew. A single silence hangs from horizon to horizon." There's more, but I'll leave you to discover it for yourself!

My last quoted section is a fascinating condemnation of industrial landowners, making them sound mercenary. The philosophy also applies to the private landowner. It is a thought I have not much considered; a land ethic: "Industrial landowners and users, especially lumbermen and stockmen, are inclined to wail long and loudly about the extension of government ownership and regulation to land, but (with notable exceptions) they show little disposition to develop the only visible alternative: the voluntary practice of conservation on their own lands.

When the private landowner is asked to perform some unprofitable act for the good of the community, he today assents only with outstretched palm. If the act costs him cash this is fair and proper, but when it costs only forethought, open-mindedness, or time, the issue is at least debatable. The overwhelming growth of land-use subsidies in recent years must be ascribed, in large part, to the government's own agencies for conservation education: the land bureaus, the agricultural colleges, and the extension services. As far as I can detect, no ethical obligation toward land is taught in these institutions.

To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the economic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government.

An ethical obligation on the part of the private owner is the only visible remedy for these situations."

I find this book fascinating, although will admit I had a hard time getting through the last section. I've always had a respect for the land and appreciated concepts like using all parts of an animal that was hunted (rather than hunting for sport). Perhaps that can be attributed to something as simple as my love for the Little House on the Prairie books.

It's interesting to me that when I lived in the Chicago area where water was plentiful, I didn't really think much about something as simple as water conservation. Now that I live in a drought area (Colorado), I am very aware of guests leaving the water on and how dry the yard looks. It's always good to read a book like this, and if it makes one more aware of their surroundings and how to be a little more responsible with the things they have. . .well, I think this author would be pleased.

For our part on the water conservation issue? Our shower is two floors above our hot water heater, and we have to run the water quite a while before it gets warm. Rather than waste it, Unk "catches" the cold water in containers whenever we shower, and uses it on the lawn. It's not much, but it's something. And the front yard already looks better in a month of doing this :)(less)

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Jan 01, 2013 Jc rated it 5 of 5 stars

To start, this is NOT the easiest book to read—it is no page turner. But, it isn’t supposed to be. This is a real classic of the American environment/ecology movement. To borrow Derleth’s title for his own work, Sand County is a true Walden West. That being said, Thoreau’s Walden is no easy read either. Sand County’s pace is slow and natural on purpose – it is a meditation on the world which we inhabit. The book, originally published in 1949, the year after Leopold died, documents the slow but s...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Mike Mensing rated it 5 of 5 stars

The war between the forest and prairie, the return of geese every March and cutting down a tree for firewood; these are just some of the things that Aldo Leopold writes about in his novel A Sand County Almanac. The novel is split into four distinct parts, but every part of the book is about the environment, either how to save it or the author’s experiences of it. Most of the book is about Aldo’s experiences in the wilderness, which are split between his cabin in Wisconsin and his many trips thro...more The war between the forest and prairie, the return of geese every March and cutting down a tree for firewood; these are just some of the things that Aldo Leopold writes about in his novel A Sand County Almanac. The novel is split into four distinct parts, but every part of the book is about the environment, either how to save it or the author’s experiences of it. Most of the book is about Aldo’s experiences in the wilderness, which are split between his cabin in Wisconsin and his many trips throughout North America.

The author constantly argues that the environment is crucial for human beings, either by giving the reader ideas on how to save it or by supplying a great deal of stories about how the environment has effected his life. The author also contends that it is a danger to forget about the environment for many reasons. “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace” (Leopold, 6).

Through interesting language that makes the reader hold onto every word, the author writes stories about wildlife and wilderness that make it impossible not to appreciate the outdoors. For example, not many people would want to read about how bur oaks are able to live in the prairie, but Aldo makes this subject seem so interesting that the reader will never forget why they are able to live in the prairie.

Even though the author continuously argues about the environment throughout the novel, it is not a hard read at all. Aldo writes this novel as if he were an average Joe that loves the outdoors. Through his great story telling about things like how a plant sprouts every summer, the author shows the reader how important even the littlest things in the environment really are.

The author’s love for the environment is shown throughout A Sand County Almanac especially when he explains the best ways, in his opinion to save the planet. First, he tells the reader that they say they love America and this country, but they don’t love the country that America was built right on top of. When the author talks about the country that America was built on top of, he is not talking about another country as we might think of, but he is talking about the dirt and soil and wilderness that we built America right on top of. “Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization” (Leopold, 264).

Given that the book was written in the 1940’s and may be a little out of date for conservation, it is a must read for all of those even mildly interested in the outdoors. No matter your interest in the outdoors, A Sand County Almanac will make you appreciate wilderness even more. The reader will have a new outlook on even the smallest things, even dirt, when they step foot outside. It’s a shame that the author passed away shortly after finishing this book because the world would be better off with more books like this one.
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Apr 16, 2011 Chelsea Decker rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting in the fact that it was non-fiction, but was told in a story-like manner. That was what kept it interesting to me. I also liked how it was almost like a biography as well. He told about his life experiences and what he noticed in nature.
My favorite parts were when he talked about hunting. It was interesting what he said about wolves. Most people would take any chance to kill a wolf because they are thought of as the enemy. The wolves kill t...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Taylor Jahner rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Taylor Jahner
Sand County Almanac Book Review
GEG-105-001

Aldo Leopold is one of the most interesting people in terms of his life’s work and experiences along the way. A man that wrote with such fascinating prose and beautiful literary devices yet was a huge supporter of getting away from book learning and being hands on, especially with nature. Leopold was a very strong advocate for ethical treatment of land and actually devotes an entire part of his book to this cause. He was also one of the la...more Taylor Jahner
Sand County Almanac Book Review
GEG-105-001

Aldo Leopold is one of the most interesting people in terms of his life’s work and experiences along the way. A man that wrote with such fascinating prose and beautiful literary devices yet was a huge supporter of getting away from book learning and being hands on, especially with nature. Leopold was a very strong advocate for ethical treatment of land and actually devotes an entire part of his book to this cause. He was also one of the largest and most influential leaders in the conservation movement, which is a very large problem facing the earth today.
One of the most defining moments in the book, and in Leopold’s life, I feel is the moment as a ranger in New Mexico when he saw a wolf and her cubs on the mountainside. Without a moment’s hesitation he pulled up and shot the mother wolf as the cubs scattered. He did this because wolves eat deer and hunters want more deer to populate the area. However when he walked up to the wolf and saw the “fierce green fire dying in her eyes (129),” he became aware of what he was doing and how wrong it was. He was disturbing the natural way of life on the mountain. The mountain grows grass, the deer eat the grass, and the wolves eat the deer. If there are not enough wolves, the deer become overpopulated and overgraze and essentially kill the mountain. This all became clear to Leopold as he started to change his thinking a bit.
Through Leopold’s work outdoors, as a Forest Ranger and especially at “The Shack” in Wisconsin, he brings a very personal view of nature to the reader. He has seen firsthand how progress was destroying nature and how something had to be done in order to save it. The Shack was a rundown farmhouse in Wisconsin where the once forested region had been used for logging, then overgrazed by cattle, and is now a barren, sandy plain. This is where Leopold put his ideas to the test of rehabilitating the area to what it once was in its prime. I feel like this I a perfect example of something small that everyone can do. Instead of everyone trying to industrialize and mold their homes into something it’s not; turn it into what it once was. Plant trees, bushes, and grass instead of pouring concrete and building sheds and fences. Leopold was able to do this in an area completely separated from its previous glory.
Leopold uses personification in his writing to the utmost extent in order to help humans realize what is out there. If a human can see a flower or a fish as something like themselves with thoughts and emotions, they are much more likely to care for it. This was Leopold’s way of conservation, to see everything as equal and belonging.
Leopold sees everything as important and beautiful. One of his sketches is on a small plant at the shack called Draba. This plant could not be seen unless you were on the ground, yet it was completely independent of anyone or anything. It was able to re-bloom on its own and was rather pretty if you were careful enough to look for it. But more than that, this was a living thing and should be treated like one. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant it may be, it is still a living creature. This is how Leopold lived his life, with nature constantly on his mind regardless of purpose.
To Leopold nature was not something we lived in, it was something we should be living with. For years he pushed to start to preserve and conserve what we had left and was one of the founders of the Wilderness Society as well as establishing a precedent for National Parks. Something Leopold preached and practiced during his life is how harmony between people and nature is what conservation is all about. This is still applicable today and should probably be taken much more seriously.
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Sep 10, 2010 Sarah Milne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

Another one I would give 3.5 stars to, were I able to give half stars. (Seriously, why can't we do that - the jump from 3 to 4 is a difficult commitment to make!) Anyway, I enjoyed this work. I enjoy nature writing. Leopold was an endearing writer, a keen observer, and an insightful commentator. Just a few great quotes:

"Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language."

"We...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Max Stone rated it 4 of 5 stars

(would have given 4.5 stars if allowed)

My mom gave me this book a couple years ago with her strong recommendation. I had some trepidation about reading a 60-70 year-old environmental book. I shouldn't have; it was great. Occasionally something in the book would feel dated but overall it was remarkable to me how well it had held up and how current and relevant it felt. Not sure if that means the issues haven't changed much in the last 60-70 years, or he was ahead of his time. Probably both.

The b...more (would have given 4.5 stars if allowed)

My mom gave me this book a couple years ago with her strong recommendation. I had some trepidation about reading a 60-70 year-old environmental book. I shouldn't have; it was great. Occasionally something in the book would feel dated but overall it was remarkable to me how well it had held up and how current and relevant it felt. Not sure if that means the issues haven't changed much in the last 60-70 years, or he was ahead of his time. Probably both.

The book is in 3 parts.

1. sketches organized by month of the year; also on some particular topic but the theme was generally "boy, nature is a remarkable thing". it's not easy to pull off making "wow, this flower is pretty" interesting to the reader (at least to me) but he did it quite well and these were a joy to read. it helped that he was incredibly knowledgeable about nature, both in the sense of a professional naturalist and in the sense of a guy who tramps around outside a lot and keeps his eyes wide open, and that he conveys that knowledge well. the sketches contained a lot of specific observations that were both interesting in themselves and also conveyed the "nature is a remarkable thing" message much more effectively than just writing how pretty it all is.

2. essays, again each on a particular topic, but generally with a theme of "boy is it sad how nature is being despoiled". these were naturally not quite so fun and uplifting, but there was still some of that, and overall these were equal in quality to the first section.

3. essays of a much more general nature on environmental topics, e.g. how developing a land ethic is key to having society value nature and hence ultimately preserve it. The introduction to the book practically warned the reader not to read these (be very afraid! these are harder to read!) and that was occasionally true, but overall I thought these chapters were equally compelling, albeit in a different way. AL is a very clear thinker and I appreciated how he laid out his arguments, examined things from multiple angles, etc. It was basically exactly how I would have requested a discussion of those issues be laid out.

Whenever I read the book, I enjoyed it, but I would also note that I put it down several times and it took me probably a year to get from beginning to end; that has to reflect something, so I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. (less)

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May 22, 2009 Angie Curtis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Powerful, inspiring, and passion driven is just a few words I would use to describe this book. Anyone who doubts the importance of conservations needs to read this book. I loved the book but it takes it made me cry, made me rage and made me question a lot of things. His words were powerful and really made me think about what I believe and how I impacted the world I lived in. You could feel so much in his words and on passage in particular will stay with me forever. " We reached the old wolf in t...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Nathan P rated it 5 of 5 stars

A Sand County Almanac was given to me by my Grandpa. At first I didn’t want to read it, because I thought it was an actual almanac. But once I started reading it I realized that it was not an almanac, and it actually turned out to be a good book.
A Sand County Almanac is a well written collection of essays, by Aldo Leopold, depicting the way life was lived in Sand County Wisconsin. I could tell right away that Mr. Leopold thought very highly of living in Sand County. After reading this book I cou...more

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May 03, 2013 Scott Middleton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Part Dante and part Ranger Rick, Aldo Leopold is one-of-a-kind naturalist and writer every bit as interesting as John Muir, if less renowned. "A Sand County Almanac," published posthumously in 1948, is a hodgepodge of Leopold's thoughts and sketches including a very thorough inventory of his farm in Wisconsin, odes to fragments of existing wilderness, a prescient forecast of the environmental movement 15 years ahead of Silent Spring.

For all his strengths of observation and rumination, Leopold w...more

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May 07, 2013 Joe Iacovino rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An absolutely beautiful book. The perfect weaving of imagery and the point to be made. The book maintains its validity even today, if not more so. There were two small things that showed bias that I've seen others take some offense to:

1. The comment on the types of people with the last being the "non-hunter" who sees nothing. (I think the broad categories used here were meant to illustrate those who were completely disconnected from the land rather than a jab at those who do not hunt.)

2. He not...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Shelton TRL rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature-gardening

A moving, peaceful and engrossing book. I am captured by Leopold's unusual and extraordinary perceptions. Sometimes, I'll remember a section or passage while I'm gardeing, walking or just staring. His early death was really a tragedy.
Norma

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Sep 12, 2012 Carol Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, book-club, nature

This is a difficult book to rate.

On the one hand, there is incredible value to be gained from the author's keen sense of observation. The first set of essays, the Sand County Almanac, takes us through a year of observing nature at work on Leopold's farm. He discovers firsthand how certain plants fare better when collocated. He bands chickadees and later discovers the bands in the pellets of a screech owl. He gains broad insights from small things that most of us pass by every day without consid...more This is a difficult book to rate.

On the one hand, there is incredible value to be gained from the author's keen sense of observation. The first set of essays, the Sand County Almanac, takes us through a year of observing nature at work on Leopold's farm. He discovers firsthand how certain plants fare better when collocated. He bands chickadees and later discovers the bands in the pellets of a screech owl. He gains broad insights from small things that most of us pass by every day without considering. It's an ode to getting out of the classroom and into the field.

He also supplies us with several formidable quotes and anecdotes on the importance of wilderness and conservation, especially in the later essays. The Flambeau River story (pp. 112-113) and his musings on the hidden uses of adversity (p. 84) are two that especially come to mind.

But Mr. Leopold is also a product of his time, and it shows. He decries the decline of the grizzly (whose numbers have since recovered) but shares a tasty outdoor recipe that uses bear fat. He decries the overhunting of various species, but then goes fishing for rainbow trout and comments with some satisfaction of smoking on a midstream rock while he could hear the trout "kicking in the bed of wet alder leaves at the bottom of the creel" (p. 38). Cruel. In some respects, the work is as much an ode to hunting as to conservation. I don't oppose hunting, but I also feel the author fails to adequately address how hunting holds a proper place in the balance of things.

Leopold also demonstrates substantial hubris towards his fellow man. He mocks a birder who attempts to describe a particular bird call in his log (p. 160), then goes on to admit that he himself will never understand the meaning of the call. Why be so nasty?!? I was personally insulted when he divided humans into four camps, including three types of hunters and one other type, the "non-hunter":

The deer hunter habitually watches the next bend; the duck hunter watches the skyline; the bird hunter watches the dog; the non-hunter does not watch (p. 208).

Mr. Leopold, I beg to differ.

I recognize that he - inevitably - carries assumptions of his own time. I just question whether his message, which was highly appropriate and advanced for his time, still resonates as effectively. It certainly should be required reading for any student of conservation or ecology, in order to understand the historic roots of the movement. For the layperson, though, I for one would rather turn someone on to contemporary nature writers such as Robert Macfarlane or Roger Deakin.

I enjoyed the illustrations of my edition. Any new printing would benefit, I think, from the inclusion of color plates that illuminate key topics such as the loss of biodiversity on the plains. (less)

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Nov 17, 2010 Helynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is actually a series of essays about respect for the American wilderness and its various trees, plants, and animals. It was published in 1948, and it is easy to see how Leopold's essays inspired the blossoming of a whole genre of wilderness literature and eco-writings. It Leopold must no doubt helped spark the passion of more contemporary writers such as Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and many others. I especially liked Leopold's description of cutting up a dead, lightening-stru...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Faye rated it 4 of 5 stars

I first read this book three decades ago and am enjoying it once again. I am familiar with the landscapes of the Northwest and New England but the prairie is foreign and thus fascinating to me. The prairies rely on fires to remain open grasslands otherwise oak trees take over. Leopold reminds us that all heat comes from the sun and that the food chain involves violent events that results in some animals and plants becoming sustenance for others.

Leopold was a hunter, fisherman, and naturalist. I...more I first read this book three decades ago and am enjoying it once again. I am familiar with the landscapes of the Northwest and New England but the prairie is foreign and thus fascinating to me. The prairies rely on fires to remain open grasslands otherwise oak trees take over. Leopold reminds us that all heat comes from the sun and that the food chain involves violent events that results in some animals and plants becoming sustenance for others.

Leopold was a hunter, fisherman, and naturalist. I wonder if the environmental movement lost momentum by becoming too pristine to approve of such activities. In Sand County Almanac a conservationist is defined as someone who thinks about what they are doing when wielding an ax and cutting down a tree. Conservationists understand what they are doing when interacting with the natural world.

Favorite quote so far (pg. 101): "Thus always does history, whether of marsh or market place, end in paradox. The ultimate value in these marshes is wildness, and the crane is wildness incarnate. But all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.

He participates in killing off predators such as bears and wolves and then writes about the impact where the mountain vegetation is damaged by too many deer and the loss of a spiritual quality wilderness has when it contains the big predators.

Cynicism that I did not expect: "There are men charged with the duty of examining the construction of the plants, animals, and soils which are the instruments of the great orchestra. These men are called professors. Each selects one instrument and spends his life taking it apart and describing its strings and sounding boards. This process of dismemberment is called research. The place for dismemberment is called research. The place for dismemberment is called a university."

On the need to promote a perception of nature: "It is the expansion of transport without a corresponding growth in perception that threatens us with qualitative bankruptcy of the recreational process. Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind."

Great quote: "Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important; it is such who prate of empires, political and economic, that will last a thousand years. It is only the scholar who appreciates that all history consists of successive excursions from a single starting-point, to which man returns again and again to organize yet another search for a durable scale of values."

Leopold holds out hope for mankind:"The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations." And then, "Ethics are possibly a kind of community instinct in-the-making." He talks about the need for "the concept of land as a community really penetrates our intellectual life." Again community is brought up in connection with "The farmers, in short, have selected those remedial practices which were profitable anyhow, and ignored those which were profitable to the community, but not clearly profitable to themselves."

"It of course goes without saying that economic feasibility limits the tether of what can or cannot be done for land. It always has and it always will. The fallacy that economic determinists have tied around our collective neck, and which we now need to cast off, is the belief that economics determines all land-use. This is simply not true."

He closes with: "By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements." "We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use."

Book came from Bailey-Howe library at UVM: QH 81 .L56 (3rd floor).
Oxford University Press, 1968, American Museum of Natural History Special Members' Edition. I also enjoyed the Charles W. Schwartz illustrations.

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Apr 03, 2008 J. D. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to J. D. by: I gave it as a gift 15 years ago, but haven't read it myself.

This book is a conservation classic by one of the founders of the Wilderness Society. A fine piece of informative, as well as polemic, writing; but a quick read. It was written shortly before Leopold's accidental death. Belongs on the shelf beside the works of John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, et al. I wish I'd read it much sooner.

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Dec 22, 2010 Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-top-50-sustainability-books

One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.

Written from an experiential perspective, with a style that is often poetic, the main message of A Sand County Almanac is that the land is not there to serve us, but that we need to live in community with the land. Community without land is empty, so by threatening the land we are threatening community. The land, th...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

A Sand County Almanac made me want to go explore my own beautiful state... there's so much I don't know.

What I'm taking from this book is that humans' ethics are still evolving, and we have yet to extend our sense of "community" beyond people to land, animals and plants. Leopold also says that we can't grieve the loss of what we don't know, and a change in our ethics about land use has to be preceded by our love, respect and appreciation of land-- and intellectual humility. We need to stop think...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Chelsea rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

A beautiful tribute to the American Landscape with vivid depictions of the scenery that once was. I admire the love and passion with which Aldo Leopold communicates his thoughts, admonitions and his sometimes idealistic suggestions for the future. However, in the words of another Landscape Visionary:

"There are those who regard anything which is beyond or outside what is generally called "practical" as something foolish, wasteful, and effeminate, not realizing that it is the beautiful which makes...more

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May 31, 2010 blake rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, anthropology-sociology

"Timeless" is an understatement. Around page 40 I decided that this was one of my favorite books ever. It was the passage on the geese I think, when he was speculating on their behavior and basically gave it up as something unknowable to mere humans. Everything I read was so beautiful and poetic, and it all conveyed such a love for nature and the land that it was really quite breathtaking. It is the closest thing to poetry that I've ever seen in non-fiction -- I would even go so far as to call i...more

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May 16, 2010 Carol rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: earth

A classic on conservation. The first half is observations made at his "useless" farm in central Wisconsin, near where I used to go to summer camp as a kid. I realize that my "knowing" that land is kind of like how I know the clerk at the grocery store. Aldo Leopold knows it as his own mother. He observes subtle interrelationships in the living community. The second half consists of short essays from different places where he has lived and traveled. I especially liked "Thinking Like a Mountain",...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Samantha Breen rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one.

Shelves: owned

Let me start off by saying that I love to read. Unless I have just finished, you will never catch me without a book, a slip of scrap paper shoved in wherever I was last forced to stop. That is why it came as a shock to me that for 4 nights in a row, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold ended up lost in my blankets somewhere, as I fell asleep trying to get through it. For some reason, this book could not hold my attention at all. I wasn’t sure why, but none of the chapters or even paragraphs see...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Aldo Leopold, one of the most influential nature writers of the twentieth century, has written an enchanting book in Sand County Almanac, and followed it up with a series of essays in which he elaborates his environmental philosophy. The best reading, for me, is the first half, for which the volume is named. The Almanac illustrates month-by-month the glories of the natural world on Leopold's "sand farm" in Wisconsin. Many of Leopold's predictions have proven prophetic. Fortunately, his call-to-a...more

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About Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) had lasting impact on natural resource management and policy in the early to mid-twentieth century and his influence has continued to expand since his death. It was through his observation, experience, and reflection at his Wisconsin river farm that he honed the concepts of land health and a land ethic that have had ever-growing influence in the years since his death. He p...more Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) had lasting impact on natural resource management and policy in the early to mid-twentieth century and his influence has continued to expand since his death. It was through his observation, experience, and reflection at his Wisconsin river farm that he honed the concepts of land health and a land ethic that have had ever-growing influence in the years since his death. He published more than five hundred articles and three books during the course of his geographically widespread career, but it was time at his shack and farm in Wisconsin that inspired most of the disarmingly simple essays in A Sand County Almanac that so many have found so thought-provoking.

The Aldo Leopold Foundation was founded in 1982 by Aldo Leopold’s children--Starker, Luna, Nina, Carl, and Estella. The Leopolds all became respected scientists and conservationists in their own right. They established the foundation primarily because they realized that the shack and farm would be a focal point for their father’s legacy for generations to come. A 501(c)(3) public charity, ALF owns and manages the Leopold Center, including the Leopold Shack and 264 surrounding acres in addition to several other parcels, and also manages much of the adjoining 1,800-acre Leopold Memorial Reserve established by neighboring landowners as an early land trust in 1967. It acts as the executor of Leopold’s literary estate, encourages scholarship on Leopold, and serves as a clearinghouse for information regarding Leopold, his work, and his ideas. It provides interpretive resources and tours for some 5,000 visitors annually, cooperates with partners on education and other off-site programming, and maintains a robust website and numerous print resources. The Aldo Leopold Foundation manages this Goodreads page.

Leopold’s life story, the development of his career as a conservationist, scientist, writer and philosopher, and his open-mindedness, his vision, and the evolution of his thinking throughout his life inspire others to start or further their own intellectual journey of discovery. A closer engagement with Leopold’s story, his writing, and the place that inspired him and his family helps people better to understand the contours of American environmental history and the role of nature in American culture, and to reflect on their own place in the complex weave of the way our society relates to land. Leopold’s vision of a society that cares about people, land, and the connections between them provides a starting point for thinking about modern-day cultures, economies, ecosystems, and communities.
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Books by Aldo Leopold

A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There

The River of the Mother of God: and other Essays by Aldo Leopold

For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays And Other Writings

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Quotes from Sand County Almanac

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” — 85 people liked it

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” — 43 people liked it

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A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River

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