Practical Conservation

Premonition of the Farm Bill’s conservation programs ?

“Most of what needs doing must be done by the farmer himself.  There is no conceivable way by which the general public can legislate crabapples, or grape tangles, or plum thickets to grow up on these barren fencerows, roadsides, and slopes, nor will the resolutions or prayers of a city change the depth of next winter’s snow nor cause cornshocks to be left in the fields to feed the birds.  All the non-farming public can do is to provide information and build incentives on which farmers may act. “

- Aldo Leopold, 1993 as cited by C. Meine in The Farmer as Conservationist: Leopold on Agriculture.