Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm

by Jane Brox

Though few of us now live close to the soil, the world we inhabit has been sculpted by our long national saga of settlement. At the heart of our identity lies the notion of the family farm, as shaped by European history and reshaped by the vast opportunities of the continent. It lies at the heart of Jane Brox's personal story, too: she is the daughter of immigrant New England farmers whose way of life she memorialized in her first two books but has not carried on.

In this clear-eyed, lyrical account, Brox twines the two narratives, personal and historical, to explore the place of the family farm as it has evolved from the pilgrims' brutal progress at Plymouth to the modern world, where much of our food is produced by industrial agriculture while the small farm is both marginalized and romanticized. In considering the place of the farm, Brox also considers the rise of textile cities in America, which encroached not only upon farms and farmers but upon the sense of commonality that once sustained them; and she traces the transformation of the idea of wilderness--and its intricate connection to cultivation--which changed as our ties to the land loosened, as terror of the wild was replaced by desire for it. Exploring these strands with neither judgment nor sentimentality, Brox arrives at something beyond a biography of the farm: a vivid depiction of the half-life it carries on in our collective imagination.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Nature

191 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

JANE BROX is the author of Clearing Land, Five Thousand Days Like This One, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Here and Nowhere Else, which received the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. She lives in Maine"

Reviews

[Beth Browne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To be responsible for so much land and yet be separated from the work of the land itself is its own weight: the farm in our minds is growing more distant and abstracted…We try to imagine what Dad would have done. We talk about what our mother might need for the future. How do you know what the future needs? It may be that the only way to preserve the farm would be to turn it into a kind of agrotourist destination with hayrides, apple picking, popcorn petting zoos. Then it may no longer be understood as necessary to any kind of daily life, but may stand only as a symbol of necessity. Preservation, then, would be the most self-conscious of acts."

Very interesting and well-written overview of farming in New England. Of particular interest to me as the owner of a family farm legacy.

[Sandy D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow non-fiction collection of essays on the history and ecology of the area around Lawrence, Mass. It took me about nine months to read this - not because it wasn't good, but because it is quiet reflective type of book that I kept putting down and then picking up weeks later, reading another chapter, and setting down again.

It's the third in Brox's trilogy of books about her family farm & orchard, but this one is more wide-ranging and less personal than the others. There's a lot about the ecology of salt marshes, a bit about Nantucket, the Grange movement, hiking, and development.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Borrrrrrring. I tried. I really really did. Couldn't get into it.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lyrical book traces the history of New England farming with a twist; her intimate knowledge of agriculture is based in the experiences of her immigrant family who came to farming in Massachusetts in the 1920s. Each chapter explores a different New England environment, from “Island” to “Wilderness” to “The New City,” always coming back to its relation to farming. “Cultivation is a possession,” she argues, “an allegiance intertwined with necessity,” and she doesn’t shy away from the fact that that need for ownership has resulted in abuse of nature and pain in the family (181). But her love for the land always shines through and makes this a moving and thought-provoking read.

[Bounti Bounti]

Impressive work shared here, it’s refreshing to see quality craftsmanship explained so clearly. BrushGrinders truly stand out for their reliability, strong performance, and practical approach to land clearing, forestry mulching, and site preparation. The attention to detail and efficiency shows real experience in the field BrushGrinders It’s easy to see how these services support property improvement, vegetation management, and outdoor planning. Overall, a helpful and well-presented insight for anyone exploring durable solutions with trusted BrushGrinders expertise.

www.lexingtonbrushgrinders.com/

[Maddie Stein · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book as I’m very interested in farming and grew up in New England, but I found the book boring and only slightly tied to farming. I felt it was hard to get to know the people described in the book, and the disjointed chapters/sections distracted from any apparent theme. Wish I enjoyed this more, but if your interest in farming is motivating you to read the book I’d choose something else.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was overall a good writing with interesting bits of history and local information put forward, however there was an underlying sadness throughout the book.

[Thomas Glasoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the most boring I have ever read. Forced myself to finish it but would have read a manual on how to operate a vcr instead.

[Kathleen F · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third book in Brox's nonfiction trilogy about her family farm in Massachusetts. These are longer set pieces than in the first two essay collections in the series--Here and Nowhere Else and Five Thousand Days Like This One, and so none of them stand out quite in the same startling way as, for instance, "Influenza 1918." Nevertheless, Brox's prose is as gorgeous and lyrical as ever, We have a sense in this book--written after her father had died--that the farm is somehow more hers than it ever has been. It also has an elegiac tone that pervades each constituent essay; she is still trying to make the farm work, but somehow, we know, this can't last long. She is tied to this land not because she loves working it, but because of what it once represented to her family, and more specifically, to her father. Knowing that she has since sold the farm (as suburban sprawl has crept up around it) makes the work all the more poignant. A lovely book. But not for fainthearted readers who can't stand lyrical prose about, say, apple orchards, or the life on and around an industrial river.

[Caroljean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brox's writing captures not just the facts but the atmosphere of lifestyles past and present but dwindling. Beautifully written.

[Connor Kippe · Rating 5 out of 5]

no book has made me feel connection to a land and the emotions of rootedness and deprivation of those like this book.