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Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees
Winner of the 2021 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing
"This deeply nourishing book invites us to reclaim reciprocity with the living world." ?Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass Once, farmers knew how to make a living hedge and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts, and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. Townspeople cut their beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again. Pruning the trees didn’t destroy them. Rather, it created the healthiest, most sustainable and most diverse woodlands that we have ever known. In this journey from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, William Bryant Logan rediscovers what was once an everyday ecology. He offers us both practical knowledge about how to live with trees to mutual benefit and hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach. 15 black and white illustrations
"This deeply nourishing book invites us to reclaim reciprocity with the living world." ?Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass Once, farmers knew how to make a living hedge and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts, and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. Townspeople cut their beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again. Pruning the trees didn’t destroy them. Rather, it created the healthiest, most sustainable and most diverse woodlands that we have ever known. In this journey from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, William Bryant Logan rediscovers what was once an everyday ecology. He offers us both practical knowledge about how to live with trees to mutual benefit and hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach. 15 black and white illustrations
384 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2019
55 people are currently reading
792 people want to read
About the author
William Bryant Logan
18 books57 followersWilliam Bryant Logan is a certified arborist and president of Urban Arborists, Inc., a Brooklyn-based tree company. Logan has won numerous Quill and Trowel Awards from the Garden Writers of America and won a 2012 Senior Scholar Award from the New York State chapter of the International Society of Arborists. He also won an NEH grant to translate Calderon de la Barca. He is on faculty at NYBG and is the author of Oak and Dirt, the latter of which was made into an award-winning documentary. The same filmmakers are currently planning a documentary made from Air. He lives in New York City.
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May 30, 2019The short version is that this is a book about coppicing and pollarding, techniques for managing forests that were once nearly universal, and are now almost completely forgotten.
In coppicing, young trees are cut down, and then they spring back by sending up many straight shoots from the roots. In pollarding, the tree is allowed to grow a sturdy trunk, but the branches are cut off. Again, the branches send out many small shoots. These shoots can be harvested, year after year, without killing the tree.
Shoots harvested after one year would be whippy, flexible sticks that could be used to make baskets, or tie up bundles, or be fed to animals. Shoots allowed to grow two or more years could become poles for fencing, building, or making tool handles. And of course, burned for firewood or made into charcoal. In the Basque country they bent trees into the exact curve needed for shipbuilding, and let them grow for fifteen or more years.
Far from harming the trees, this system gave them added vigor. Constantly producing new wood kept them young, and coppiced and pollarded trees exist that are centuries old. The harvested sprout wood was superior, as it was long and straight, and didn’t need to be split. The coppiced and pollarded woodlands were more alive than dark, mature woods. The sunlight that was able to come through the trees allowed a great variety of plants to grow underneath, which drew a great variety of animals. The live tree roots remaining in the soil prevented erosion. The people benefitted by having a steady supply of wood and forage.
That was the short version, but there is more. If all Mr. Logan did was re-introduce the world to the lost mechanics of coppicing and pollarding, the book would be interesting and informative. But there is more. He writes like a man in love. He goes into raptures about the wonder of trees, which adapt to poor growing conditions by wiggling their shoots around like spaghetti until they find a shaft of sunlight, or when knocked down, turning any old branch into a leader, or a whole new tree.
He also rhapsodizes about the social implications of the sproutlands. Sproutlands were often common land, and community norms regulated when and how much wood could be harvested. When people avoided greed, the whole community prospered. The sproutlands were a way of life in which people lived in harmony with nature, listening to its rhythms, not trampling over it. Treating trees well, and treating our fellow human beings well go hand in hand.
Mr. Logan’s interest in pollarding began when, as a working arborist, he was asked to pollard some plane trees in the garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He did, but with anxiety that his deep pruning would kill the trees. He didn’t know what he was doing, since pollarding was a lost art, so he sought out experts. There were very few, but he traveled the world interviewing the Basque, the Norwegians, the Japanese, and the basket-weaving Native Americans of California. What he learned changed his outlook on life, and it may have changed mine. I have often looked on the suckering habit of trees in my garden as an annoyance, and already I am thinking of it as a wonder and a gift.
In coppicing, young trees are cut down, and then they spring back by sending up many straight shoots from the roots. In pollarding, the tree is allowed to grow a sturdy trunk, but the branches are cut off. Again, the branches send out many small shoots. These shoots can be harvested, year after year, without killing the tree.
Shoots harvested after one year would be whippy, flexible sticks that could be used to make baskets, or tie up bundles, or be fed to animals. Shoots allowed to grow two or more years could become poles for fencing, building, or making tool handles. And of course, burned for firewood or made into charcoal. In the Basque country they bent trees into the exact curve needed for shipbuilding, and let them grow for fifteen or more years.
Far from harming the trees, this system gave them added vigor. Constantly producing new wood kept them young, and coppiced and pollarded trees exist that are centuries old. The harvested sprout wood was superior, as it was long and straight, and didn’t need to be split. The coppiced and pollarded woodlands were more alive than dark, mature woods. The sunlight that was able to come through the trees allowed a great variety of plants to grow underneath, which drew a great variety of animals. The live tree roots remaining in the soil prevented erosion. The people benefitted by having a steady supply of wood and forage.
That was the short version, but there is more. If all Mr. Logan did was re-introduce the world to the lost mechanics of coppicing and pollarding, the book would be interesting and informative. But there is more. He writes like a man in love. He goes into raptures about the wonder of trees, which adapt to poor growing conditions by wiggling their shoots around like spaghetti until they find a shaft of sunlight, or when knocked down, turning any old branch into a leader, or a whole new tree.
He also rhapsodizes about the social implications of the sproutlands. Sproutlands were often common land, and community norms regulated when and how much wood could be harvested. When people avoided greed, the whole community prospered. The sproutlands were a way of life in which people lived in harmony with nature, listening to its rhythms, not trampling over it. Treating trees well, and treating our fellow human beings well go hand in hand.
Mr. Logan’s interest in pollarding began when, as a working arborist, he was asked to pollard some plane trees in the garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He did, but with anxiety that his deep pruning would kill the trees. He didn’t know what he was doing, since pollarding was a lost art, so he sought out experts. There were very few, but he traveled the world interviewing the Basque, the Norwegians, the Japanese, and the basket-weaving Native Americans of California. What he learned changed his outlook on life, and it may have changed mine. I have often looked on the suckering habit of trees in my garden as an annoyance, and already I am thinking of it as a wonder and a gift.
June 19, 2019
Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees
William Bryant Logan
This is an enjoyable read that helps us understand the potential roles for trees in our lives.
The author starts off with a fairly lengthy discussion of tree pollarding. This process has been a central part of tree management for much of known history. For thousands of years prior to industrialization, people in many parts of the world used pollarding to gain the raw materials for fences, baskets, animal feed, and a variety of other uses. It was an important part of agrarian life.
To get a quick understanding of tree pollarding, notice the two tree drawings on the book's front cover. The upper drawing shows a tree that has just been pollarded. The lower drawing show the same tree several years later. Using this process, farmers can have a virtually endless supply of useful tree parts.
Early man used fire effectively to prevent invasive species from overtaking managed trees. The author gives several extended examples from around the world to illustrate effective land management.
In the later part of the book, the author discusses the effects of industrialization and our drift away from a long-term perspective on tree management. He notes that in recent decades there has been renewed interest in a more long-term sustainable interest in land and tree management. In particular, he details some of the renewed interest in Japan, and other places, for the benefits of small areas of trees that are cared for throughout an urban area. This is not about raw materials, but more about culture and values.
It's easy to see how trees can improve our quality of life in some situations.
William Bryant Logan
This is an enjoyable read that helps us understand the potential roles for trees in our lives.
The author starts off with a fairly lengthy discussion of tree pollarding. This process has been a central part of tree management for much of known history. For thousands of years prior to industrialization, people in many parts of the world used pollarding to gain the raw materials for fences, baskets, animal feed, and a variety of other uses. It was an important part of agrarian life.
To get a quick understanding of tree pollarding, notice the two tree drawings on the book's front cover. The upper drawing shows a tree that has just been pollarded. The lower drawing show the same tree several years later. Using this process, farmers can have a virtually endless supply of useful tree parts.
Early man used fire effectively to prevent invasive species from overtaking managed trees. The author gives several extended examples from around the world to illustrate effective land management.
In the later part of the book, the author discusses the effects of industrialization and our drift away from a long-term perspective on tree management. He notes that in recent decades there has been renewed interest in a more long-term sustainable interest in land and tree management. In particular, he details some of the renewed interest in Japan, and other places, for the benefits of small areas of trees that are cared for throughout an urban area. This is not about raw materials, but more about culture and values.
It's easy to see how trees can improve our quality of life in some situations.
January 9, 2020
The author writes in detail about two processes: pollarding and coppicing. I did to the meaning of either term or that a copse was a coppiced forest and was delighted to learn. Pollarding involves cutting the tops off trees to create a fuller growth outward instead of upward. With trees planted in a lie this creates a hedge. Coppicing is cutting trees back to near ground level and encouraging sprouts to grow into full grown trees. Both processes provide for a harvest of wood, very important to many growers.
The book also covers other uses of trees for human and animal feed, hedge building, etc.
I enjoyed the writing and found the topics interesting.
The book also covers other uses of trees for human and animal feed, hedge building, etc.
I enjoyed the writing and found the topics interesting.
August 13, 2020
What an eye-opening, beautifully written book! I always suspected that we were closer to the vegetable kingdom than we realize, but here we learn just how deeply entwined our destinies are.
I'm not a tree hugger, but after reading this, I might just go out a pat a few and tell them how much a appreciate them.
I'm not a tree hugger, but after reading this, I might just go out a pat a few and tell them how much a appreciate them.
July 14, 2019
Wonderful prose and researched in a way that I love. Logan brings his experience as a serious arborist, his considerable inquisitiveness, and an uncanny ability to bring fascinating histories to light. The idea that trees are generous and foster abundance when humans work with them is simple, but fun to peruse. I'm going to add Logan's Air and Dirt to my list.
May 22, 2019
To read Tolkien and Lewis as a child is to believe that trees are magical. Trees and the love of trees are strong throughout Tolkien’s books, beginning with the mundane but beloved Party Tree, the tragic symbolism of the White Tree of Numenor, the stately and otherworldly mallorns, a nut of which Sam carries so carefully back to the Shire; and then also the literally magical trees: wicked Old Man Willow, the dangerous Huorns, the sentient Ents and their tree-herds. Go back far enough in Tolkien’s work and you see that the sun and moon were originally trees, created by the gods.
In Lewis you have the dryads and hamadryads – tossing back their leafy hair - at a Narnian party, partaking of dishes of various earths; after reading that passage I never forgot, playing in the dirt, that every color, every different texture, might all taste different and be just as delightful to a tree as the things I’m given at a party are to me.
It’s so easy to see when someone really loves trees. Tolkien and Lewis wrote them into their stories as living creatures and invested their deaths with real sorrow.
Logan loves trees too, and writes them as living creatures which, like Tolkien's Great Stories, don't ever really end. And here’s the truly magical thing; there’s no fantasy in this book, just unvarnished reality and deep knowledge and really really good writing. I’ve never read such a beautiful non-fiction book.
Logan takes two subjects that NOBODY is talking about, coppicing and pollarding, and ties them to ecology, history, politics, geography, and to civilization and man’s ability to thrive. His book spans centuries and continents, and he makes a very convincing case for the best path forward for nature AND humanity being the two of us working together. We are not better off without a diversity of wilderness close at hand. The wilderness is not better off without a tempering hand. That seems counterintuitive, but Logan proves that careful and knowledgeable tree-husbandry increases the bio-diversity of the region and the health and longevity of the trees, and illustrates it based on various cultures worldwide that abandoned coppicing only to return or try to return to it.
What this book did was find beauty in the unbeautiful as well as in the sublime – in the waste places and highways of the world, where trees struggle to find purchase (Logan’s description of a collection of ‘weed trees’ growing under a viaduct beside a human waste processing plant borders on poetry) – and encouragement in the desolation that we’ve left in too many places. Given time and room to grow, nature will always let the jungle in. I find hope in being reminded of that and also in being reminded that the best future isn’t the absence of man, it’s man as caretaker.
LOVE this book. All the stars.
In Lewis you have the dryads and hamadryads – tossing back their leafy hair - at a Narnian party, partaking of dishes of various earths; after reading that passage I never forgot, playing in the dirt, that every color, every different texture, might all taste different and be just as delightful to a tree as the things I’m given at a party are to me.
It’s so easy to see when someone really loves trees. Tolkien and Lewis wrote them into their stories as living creatures and invested their deaths with real sorrow.
Logan loves trees too, and writes them as living creatures which, like Tolkien's Great Stories, don't ever really end. And here’s the truly magical thing; there’s no fantasy in this book, just unvarnished reality and deep knowledge and really really good writing. I’ve never read such a beautiful non-fiction book.
Logan takes two subjects that NOBODY is talking about, coppicing and pollarding, and ties them to ecology, history, politics, geography, and to civilization and man’s ability to thrive. His book spans centuries and continents, and he makes a very convincing case for the best path forward for nature AND humanity being the two of us working together. We are not better off without a diversity of wilderness close at hand. The wilderness is not better off without a tempering hand. That seems counterintuitive, but Logan proves that careful and knowledgeable tree-husbandry increases the bio-diversity of the region and the health and longevity of the trees, and illustrates it based on various cultures worldwide that abandoned coppicing only to return or try to return to it.
What this book did was find beauty in the unbeautiful as well as in the sublime – in the waste places and highways of the world, where trees struggle to find purchase (Logan’s description of a collection of ‘weed trees’ growing under a viaduct beside a human waste processing plant borders on poetry) – and encouragement in the desolation that we’ve left in too many places. Given time and room to grow, nature will always let the jungle in. I find hope in being reminded of that and also in being reminded that the best future isn’t the absence of man, it’s man as caretaker.
LOVE this book. All the stars.
August 29, 2019
Another in the genre of nature books that has a couple of cool central ideas--humans and trees need to cooperate with each other for about nine dozen reasons; trees are a whole lot smarter than humans typically think--but doesn't quite come together as a book. There are several sections--the fundamentals of coppice and pollard (both now permanent parts of my conceptual and perceptual vocabularies); the chapter on Native California; and the sequence on Japan. But there are a bunch of pieces that feel like unincorporated magazine articles and when Logan strays from trees to local color, I tended to lose interest. Might have liked this better if I'd read it before The Secret Life of Trees and Song of the Trees, but still happy to have read it.
August 17, 2019
"trees are functionally immortal"
Coppice and pollard... A method of harvesting wood that keeps the tree alive, usually much longer than they would in the wild. Forests have been managed this way for many millennia in all parts of the world, and the human hand actually results in more biodiversity than wild forests. A fascinating topic I had known nothing about before, but I would have preferred a more focused and practical approach to the narrative.
Coppice and pollard... A method of harvesting wood that keeps the tree alive, usually much longer than they would in the wild. Forests have been managed this way for many millennia in all parts of the world, and the human hand actually results in more biodiversity than wild forests. A fascinating topic I had known nothing about before, but I would have preferred a more focused and practical approach to the narrative.
September 30, 2025
Finally finished. Thoroughly enjoyed and immersed - how trees are immortal through sprouting - some through just natural survival and some through intentional management by humans - especially in long ago times - through coppicing and pollarding = cutting trees to generate new growth- new growth used for everything- back when everything was wood and plants - before metals and stone used - to make fences, baskets, food for humans and animals, heat - learned SO much
May 9, 2019
How wonderful. I learnt a lot about trees in this book. William Bryant Logan talks about the two ancient tree-regenerating practices that humans of the past used to procure the wood they needed. These two practices are called pollarding and coppicing. Both of these are a sustainable way of obtaining wood from a tree while leaving dormant buds alive. These dormant buds then enable the tree to grow back to its original height in a few years. Forests and groves that are well-managed by humans harbor greater biodiversity and variety than unmanaged ones. There is a way to do this right, and Logan tells us how. It's inspiring, and often beautiful. The writing is also good -- lots of personal anecdotes and trips to various parts of the world to see how natives have been managing their trees. Some people, thankfully, are now hearkening back to these (not so) ancient practices in an effort to sustainably manage their trees and extract benefits from them too.
June 28, 2019
After watching ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ with my daughter I had a curiosity about Japanese satoyama villages and places and times where humans lived symbiotically with nature. I stumbled across this book at my local library and took it home.
The book did a good job of setting the stage and introducing the techniques humans have used during our existence to manage trees and use them to our advantage.
The author’s appreciation of trees and these techniques took him all over the planet where he enjoyed some great experiences. Unfortunately for me they didn’t all translate well to the page and it was a struggle for me to finish reading, though I ultimately did.
The book left me with a greater appreciation for the resilience of vegetation, trees in particular, redefining what makes a tree attractive or useful. Perhaps if you were an arborist you’d enjoy this book more than I did.
The book did a good job of setting the stage and introducing the techniques humans have used during our existence to manage trees and use them to our advantage.
The author’s appreciation of trees and these techniques took him all over the planet where he enjoyed some great experiences. Unfortunately for me they didn’t all translate well to the page and it was a struggle for me to finish reading, though I ultimately did.
The book left me with a greater appreciation for the resilience of vegetation, trees in particular, redefining what makes a tree attractive or useful. Perhaps if you were an arborist you’d enjoy this book more than I did.
December 25, 2024
A terrific book exploring how humans and trees have interacted for millennia. The author suggest we reconnect with these methods, re-invigorating that relationship, if we are to reimagine a future that is sustainable. His presentation is tinged with nostalgia, which does not appeal to me, but otherwise it’s a fascinating and inspiring read.
January 4, 2020
This book held my attention until about 1/3 of the way through. To me, it turned into a history book and started going by reallyyyyy slowly. Overall, I enjoyed the information, but I think it could have been written in a way that captivated the reader more.
October 2, 2024
This is one of the rare nonfiction books that kept me turning pages. I learned so much about trees, but more specifically about how humans and trees have lived in a responsive and reciprocal relationship for thousands of years.
Author William Bryant Logan spends a lot of time describing the tree pruning practices of coppicing and pollarding. In coppicing, trees are cut back to the ground and new sprouts grow up from the base (coppicing can also be accomplished with fire). In pollarding, a trunk grows and the tree is then repeatedly pruned at a certain height. He had my interest when he wrote:
Logan is an arborist who has been hired to pollard and coppice urban trees outside NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Much of the book recounts his search for instruction on how to do it. Not many living people remember the art, but there are enough clues for him to learn what he needs. Most importantly, the trees are teachers. At the end of the book, he writes:
There are so many delightful parts of this book - too many to mention here. A few I especially enjoyed:
- learning about an approach to "forest management" that is very different from what foresters practice today - instead, managing a woodland so that trees are in different stages of regrowth and can provide food, medicine, fuel, and building materials needed by nearby humans - without killing the trees
- hedges have a lot going on! They have living fences with more biodiversity than deep forest that provide in so many ways.
- leaf hay is a thing that helps feed animals and is actually more nutritious than grass hay
- indigenous peoples knew how to live in balance with the trees that supported them. The chapter about California Indians and their advanced basket making techniques was especially interesting
- I just like this passage: "Scholars get angry when you tell them something has happened since time immemorial, but they are just going to have to get used to the fact that there was a time when measuring its passage was not so important" (245).
- The smaller, local energy stations in Japan that run on coppiced woods provide an intriguing and sustainable option for powering our lives
A great read!
Author William Bryant Logan spends a lot of time describing the tree pruning practices of coppicing and pollarding. In coppicing, trees are cut back to the ground and new sprouts grow up from the base (coppicing can also be accomplished with fire). In pollarding, a trunk grows and the tree is then repeatedly pruned at a certain height. He had my interest when he wrote:
Not only are sprouts "important" in pruning ..., they are the reason that there are any trees or shrubs at all, and they are the reason that there are any people at all. For all but the last two centuries of human history, the whole point of pruning was to produce sprouts ... for when those sprouts grew up they gave people firewood, charcoal, building wood, ship timber, fence posts, slender willow whips...to tie knots with, hedges, fodder, fiber, rope, and baskets. They gave us a way to stay warm, to eat, to live, a way to travel. Without them, human beings would not have made it past the Neolithic. (24)
Logan is an arborist who has been hired to pollard and coppice urban trees outside NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Much of the book recounts his search for instruction on how to do it. Not many living people remember the art, but there are enough clues for him to learn what he needs. Most importantly, the trees are teachers. At the end of the book, he writes:
I had found many wonderful advisors in my journey to figure out how to prune them, but above all, the trees themselves have been my teachers. The woods brought us from the Neolithic to the edge of the modern world. They showed us how to work with them and with one another in a way that was good for all. I had started out looking for a book of instruction, and instead found a way of life that had brought us from the mesolithic to the modern. It involved not just trees, not just people, but each bringing help to the other. (303)
There are so many delightful parts of this book - too many to mention here. A few I especially enjoyed:
- learning about an approach to "forest management" that is very different from what foresters practice today - instead, managing a woodland so that trees are in different stages of regrowth and can provide food, medicine, fuel, and building materials needed by nearby humans - without killing the trees
- hedges have a lot going on! They have living fences with more biodiversity than deep forest that provide in so many ways.
- leaf hay is a thing that helps feed animals and is actually more nutritious than grass hay
- indigenous peoples knew how to live in balance with the trees that supported them. The chapter about California Indians and their advanced basket making techniques was especially interesting
- I just like this passage: "Scholars get angry when you tell them something has happened since time immemorial, but they are just going to have to get used to the fact that there was a time when measuring its passage was not so important" (245).
- The smaller, local energy stations in Japan that run on coppiced woods provide an intriguing and sustainable option for powering our lives
A great read!
November 21, 2020
The title of this book comes from Henry David Thoreau, quoted on the opening page, and refers to the regeneration of trees after land clearance by burning. He admires the fresh new growth and asks “Shall man then despair? Is he not a sproutland too...?”
So the scene is set for a fascinating exploration of the cutting and re-sprouting of trees, alongside the cultural history of societies worldwide who have sprouted their own distinct ways of living with trees, to the benefit of both.
This story reminds us that our very culture was founded on trees, that the tending of trees has been practised by humans for the last 10,000 years, and we were largely dependent on the bounty of trees until about 200 years ago. The author also makes the startling claim that without the ‘sprouts’ of trees, ‘human beings would not have made it past the Neolithic’.
The author is a practising arborist in New York and this direct experience gives his narrative an engaging authenticity and immediacy as he wrestles with the practical problems of saving a moribund hollow willow, or pollarding groups of Plane trees outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pollarding has fallen out of common practice in North America and he is concerned that this seemingly brutal pruning will kill the trees in his care. Much of the book is a quest to research the tending of trees by coppicing and pollarding, so as to inform his own practice at home – an admirable ambition.
The journey brings him to Westonbirt Arboretum, Burnham Beeches, Bradfield Woods and the Somerset Levels, where he marvels at the long traditions of cutting and resprouting evident in the fantastical tree forms – familiar practices to the average RFS member.
More interesting are his journeys to the Basque country to see how trees are shaped over decades to make boat timbers, how ash is pollarded for sheep fodder and how land is still managed under the commons system. Drawing on the many and varied examples he visits, he advocates using ‘head and heart and hand’ to develop his craft, in constant dialogue with the trees, noting each response from the living world and honing his work in turn.
The author also makes an extended tour of coppiced woods in Japan, shifting cultivators in Sierra Leone, and grazing techniques in Norway. Particularly interesting are the native American Indians of California, whose woven baskets were water-tight and used for cooking. Their hunter-gatherer culture tended the forest over centuries, bending it gently and respectfully to support their modest needs.
Indeed, this is a recurrent theme of the book – how our interaction with trees has benefitted both us and the trees. We have gained because we have reaped, over millennia, a constant harvest of food, materials, fuel and shelter from trees; trees have gained from our tending by extending their livespans considerably as pollards or coppice stools. Whilst this may be the case for individual trees, forests as a whole have suffered catastrophic loss through their encounters with humans!
I recommend this book as a timely study of the central role that tending trees has played in our cultural history and how we can continue our active engagement in the living world through our relationship with trees.
So the scene is set for a fascinating exploration of the cutting and re-sprouting of trees, alongside the cultural history of societies worldwide who have sprouted their own distinct ways of living with trees, to the benefit of both.
This story reminds us that our very culture was founded on trees, that the tending of trees has been practised by humans for the last 10,000 years, and we were largely dependent on the bounty of trees until about 200 years ago. The author also makes the startling claim that without the ‘sprouts’ of trees, ‘human beings would not have made it past the Neolithic’.
The author is a practising arborist in New York and this direct experience gives his narrative an engaging authenticity and immediacy as he wrestles with the practical problems of saving a moribund hollow willow, or pollarding groups of Plane trees outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pollarding has fallen out of common practice in North America and he is concerned that this seemingly brutal pruning will kill the trees in his care. Much of the book is a quest to research the tending of trees by coppicing and pollarding, so as to inform his own practice at home – an admirable ambition.
The journey brings him to Westonbirt Arboretum, Burnham Beeches, Bradfield Woods and the Somerset Levels, where he marvels at the long traditions of cutting and resprouting evident in the fantastical tree forms – familiar practices to the average RFS member.
More interesting are his journeys to the Basque country to see how trees are shaped over decades to make boat timbers, how ash is pollarded for sheep fodder and how land is still managed under the commons system. Drawing on the many and varied examples he visits, he advocates using ‘head and heart and hand’ to develop his craft, in constant dialogue with the trees, noting each response from the living world and honing his work in turn.
The author also makes an extended tour of coppiced woods in Japan, shifting cultivators in Sierra Leone, and grazing techniques in Norway. Particularly interesting are the native American Indians of California, whose woven baskets were water-tight and used for cooking. Their hunter-gatherer culture tended the forest over centuries, bending it gently and respectfully to support their modest needs.
Indeed, this is a recurrent theme of the book – how our interaction with trees has benefitted both us and the trees. We have gained because we have reaped, over millennia, a constant harvest of food, materials, fuel and shelter from trees; trees have gained from our tending by extending their livespans considerably as pollards or coppice stools. Whilst this may be the case for individual trees, forests as a whole have suffered catastrophic loss through their encounters with humans!
I recommend this book as a timely study of the central role that tending trees has played in our cultural history and how we can continue our active engagement in the living world through our relationship with trees.
August 8, 2019
Lovely but seriously flawed
This book is full of reverie and wonder about trees and our relationships to them. Fascinating little dips into botany and plant morphology and arboriculture. The author’s personal narrative of exploring various histories of coppicing and pollarding is compelling and well-written. It’s mostly delightful to read, with a few rambly exceptions when the author attempts to grasp and explain complex land-based cultures in Japan and Sierra Leone. (He fared better, in my mind, in Norway and England and Basque Country and Northern California. Do you see a trend?)
But I have to add this caveat: the book is so, so narrow-minded, blinkered in imagination by its author’s perspective and position as a white straight man in the U.S. The book opens ominously, with an epigraph by Edgar Anderson using (what should be obviously!) racist words. From here on, the narration reveals itself to be cluelessly orientalist and casually male-centric, Christian-centric, and hetero-centric. This has the effect of constantly reminding the reader that the author imagines white, straight, Christian men to be the (sole) protagonists of history. In some ways this makes it feel like a relic of the 19th century. In addition, and perhaps for the same reasons, the book is relentlessly apolitical, stunningly so given the state of ecological destruction in 2019. Maybe I’m asking for too much— but in a field where so many others (Solnit, McPhee, Kimmerer, to name a few) have written passionately *and* politically about human relationships with plants and ecosystems, I don’t feel I can overlook these shortcomings.
This book is full of reverie and wonder about trees and our relationships to them. Fascinating little dips into botany and plant morphology and arboriculture. The author’s personal narrative of exploring various histories of coppicing and pollarding is compelling and well-written. It’s mostly delightful to read, with a few rambly exceptions when the author attempts to grasp and explain complex land-based cultures in Japan and Sierra Leone. (He fared better, in my mind, in Norway and England and Basque Country and Northern California. Do you see a trend?)
But I have to add this caveat: the book is so, so narrow-minded, blinkered in imagination by its author’s perspective and position as a white straight man in the U.S. The book opens ominously, with an epigraph by Edgar Anderson using (what should be obviously!) racist words. From here on, the narration reveals itself to be cluelessly orientalist and casually male-centric, Christian-centric, and hetero-centric. This has the effect of constantly reminding the reader that the author imagines white, straight, Christian men to be the (sole) protagonists of history. In some ways this makes it feel like a relic of the 19th century. In addition, and perhaps for the same reasons, the book is relentlessly apolitical, stunningly so given the state of ecological destruction in 2019. Maybe I’m asking for too much— but in a field where so many others (Solnit, McPhee, Kimmerer, to name a few) have written passionately *and* politically about human relationships with plants and ecosystems, I don’t feel I can overlook these shortcomings.
June 18, 2019
Lovely book about the lives of trees and the human cultures that depend on trees, live in symbiosis and harmony with them. Describes practices like coppicing and pollarding that made trees a truly renewable resource, almost immortal. One chapter is about Indians living in what is now California who had no need for metal or pottery. They cooked in baskets so tightly woven of thin wood as to be watertight. Put in grain, water, a very hot stone and presto bubbling hot gruel.
Memorable section on Basque forestry and land use, how trees shape a human community.
The power of trees to restore landscape, either as volunteers or under the care of a master, is another theme. I was struck with the description of the re-wooding by weed trees of Gerritsen Beach in Staten Island, near the gigantic now-closed trash landfill at Fresh Kills. My great x8 grandfather, Gerrit Jansen van Oldenburg, owned land around there. Gerritsen Beach has to be named for his son Jan Gerritsen (baptized 1642).
The tree spirit in this book showed itself to me this week. A month ago I had cut down a volunteer mulberry tree that was breaking the edge of a storage shed roof and bucked the 8" diameter trunk. Last week, going to take away the segments, I found each had little green sprouts coming out of it. Wood is another miracle.
Memorable section on Basque forestry and land use, how trees shape a human community.
The power of trees to restore landscape, either as volunteers or under the care of a master, is another theme. I was struck with the description of the re-wooding by weed trees of Gerritsen Beach in Staten Island, near the gigantic now-closed trash landfill at Fresh Kills. My great x8 grandfather, Gerrit Jansen van Oldenburg, owned land around there. Gerritsen Beach has to be named for his son Jan Gerritsen (baptized 1642).
The tree spirit in this book showed itself to me this week. A month ago I had cut down a volunteer mulberry tree that was breaking the edge of a storage shed roof and bucked the 8" diameter trunk. Last week, going to take away the segments, I found each had little green sprouts coming out of it. Wood is another miracle.
May 23, 2021
I met William Bryant Logan two times: the first at NYC Parks presenting the movie based on his book 'Dirt' and the second time when I arrived at least 20 minutes early to a discussion of Sproutlands at the Arnold Arboretum. He graciously kept me occupied and we chatted about urban forestry and tree pruning techniques in Latin America.
The book remained on the bottom of my to read pile until I moved to Seattle where I noticed many many pollarded trees. I picked the book up to see if there was some explanation and found that maybe it is the influence of Norway. Some parts of this book seemed particularly dense like the chapter about Spain - I think diagrams would have helped. And the chapter on Japan, while fascinating, overused local terms to the point where I couldn't it keep it all straight.
All in all, a great trip around the world to learn about the human management of the growth form of trees.
The book remained on the bottom of my to read pile until I moved to Seattle where I noticed many many pollarded trees. I picked the book up to see if there was some explanation and found that maybe it is the influence of Norway. Some parts of this book seemed particularly dense like the chapter about Spain - I think diagrams would have helped. And the chapter on Japan, while fascinating, overused local terms to the point where I couldn't it keep it all straight.
All in all, a great trip around the world to learn about the human management of the growth form of trees.
August 5, 2019
I found a lot of this book really interesting! The author takes you on tour of the globe and investigates how, throughout history, humans have pruned, coppiced and pollarded trees (look at all these words I know now!). The human need for a reliable and renewable source of energy, food, and building material fostered a mutually beneficial relationship between trees and people. In fact, trees that were responsibly coppiced came back stronger and healthier and supported more diverse ecosystems. The most powerful point to me was the importance of active stewardship of our environment. Our trees need some help! I had some minor issues with the book; there were some long tangents (I'm thinking about the pages devoted to how ship timbers fit together) and I thought some bits were repetitive but overall, an interesting read.
October 21, 2020
This book did not disappoint me.
I gained a lot of information regarding tending of forests, such as pollards and coppicing. I didn't really know a lot about those aspects of caring for trees.
The author did an excellent job in explaining various processes, and in fact, told his own stories of seeking out other individuals in order to learn the details of their knowledge.
Trees are amazing environmental necessities, and are often overlooked in their capacities of enriching our lives. Pollards, coppicing, and other manipulations, help to keep them managed, and keep them healthy. This book has a wealth of information.
I highly recommend Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees.
I gained a lot of information regarding tending of forests, such as pollards and coppicing. I didn't really know a lot about those aspects of caring for trees.
The author did an excellent job in explaining various processes, and in fact, told his own stories of seeking out other individuals in order to learn the details of their knowledge.
Trees are amazing environmental necessities, and are often overlooked in their capacities of enriching our lives. Pollards, coppicing, and other manipulations, help to keep them managed, and keep them healthy. This book has a wealth of information.
I highly recommend Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees.
April 1, 2021
Is there anything William Bryant Logan doesn’t know about? He certainly has an interest in almost everything. He’s written a very fine book. It’s more than just about nature. So many books written about nature these days dwell on what nature is losing—and with good reason. But I think Logan’s argument is that things are still recoverable. That it’s in nature’s DNA to bounce back with new forms if humans help tend to nature. His other argument I think is that we should all return to the 1200s. Life was better then! Four of my favorite chapters (each chapter is like an essay) are “Boat Wood,” “Hill Girt,” “Instrument of Light,” and “Making Good Sticks.” If you can’t take a stroll in a park or arboretum this book is the next best thing.
September 4, 2019
The writing in this book is not exceptional. The author has several short chapters that might make the book seem disconnected.
I give a high rating because my ruler is whether a book can help make the world a better place. Logan's book is a paradigm changer. I live in a town where people think lawn care services and their gas powered blowers are the right connection to nature.
Logan explains that communities once lived with trees in a way that regenerated ecosystems. His book is not about pruning trees. His book teaches readers that historically communities once lived with trees in a way that encouraged ecologic regeneration that doesn't simply benefit human beings.
I give a high rating because my ruler is whether a book can help make the world a better place. Logan's book is a paradigm changer. I live in a town where people think lawn care services and their gas powered blowers are the right connection to nature.
Logan explains that communities once lived with trees in a way that regenerated ecosystems. His book is not about pruning trees. His book teaches readers that historically communities once lived with trees in a way that encouraged ecologic regeneration that doesn't simply benefit human beings.
October 20, 2023
I feel completely inadequate to review this amazing book. It is about coppicing, cutting trees in a way that allows sprouts to regenerate useful branches, but also about how this practice supported advanced cultures in Basque country, Scandinavia, Japan, and North America. It is about how man and tree worked together for centuries to build nature and civilization as we know it, and how over the last 200 years that knowledge has been almost completely lost. Almost but not quite, not yet. A beautiful, wide-ranging, eye-opening book, one to treasure.
November 8, 2025
This is a fascinating account of tree management through the ages of man. I was amazed by the universality of the practices of cutting back trees to spur useful regrowth ( pollarding )However I did not care for the writing. Too often there were long “horizontal lists” of 10 or more plant names,or tree types, which were just that, listings, without any real information. The author assumed a knowledge of tree types and tree biology that most people don’t have. The book needed many more illustrations. Some of the essays were poorly organized.
August 23, 2019
Tons of stories about how people in the past worked with trees to get the most out of them. It's amazing that they could selectively cut parts of the tree year after year (or in multi-year cycles) for building supplies, fire wood, etc, and have the trees sprout back. Makes you appreciate what people learned over generations and how to fit it into modern life
September 1, 2019
I learned a lot from this book and I found it interesting but I didn't love the style it was written in (I'm not saying it was poorly written, it was just a style that doesn't particularly appeal to me. Others will likely love that style). If you want to learn about coppicing and pollarding this is the book for you.
December 27, 2021
Great book that I used to explore the topic of coppicing and pollarding. I read it based on a recommendation of someone I interviewed for treehugger podcast. The book taught me a lot about where our conceptions of untouched nature come from as well as how integral humans are in manufacturing woodland landscapes.
January 16, 2023
A fascinating, brilliantly written book about how communities from time immemorial cared for their trees, harnessing techniques—coppicing and pollarding—to grow multiple trees from an existing root base. Mr. Logan takes us around the world in his quest to learn how to care for some trees planted at the MOMA in NYC.
September 4, 2019
Solid science conveyed in enthusiastic, sometimes rapturous prose. There is so much going on in this book: botany, arboriculture, politics, philosophy, history, economics. And yet Logan effortlessly moves from one to another. Highly recommended.
August 2, 2021
I loved this book. An excellent follow-up to Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta, or Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, this book tells stories that pull you into a deeper relationship with the land around you.
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