The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

by Wendell Berry

Granted that there is always plenty of room to disagree about farming methods, there is still no way to deny that in the first quotation we have a description of careless farming, and in the second a description of a way of farming as careful – as knowing, skillful, and loving – as any other kind of high workmanship. The difference between the two is simply that the second considers where and how the machine is used, whereas the first considers only the machine. The first is the point of view of a man high up in the air-conditioned cab of a tractor described as ‘a beast that eats acres.’ The second is that of a man who has worked close to the ground in the open air of the field, who has studied the condition of the ground as he drove over it, and who has cared and thought about it.