L.H. Bailey appears in, The Native Landscape Reader

    When it comes to school allegiances, the green colored gridiron may always cast The University of Michigan and Michigan State University as the eternal warring opposites. When it comes to the cultivated patch of green, acrimony is passe as witnessed in U of M's Robert E. Grese's inclusion of MSU alum, Liberty Hyde Bailey in his volume, The Native Landscape Reader (Critical Perspectives in the History of Environmental Design) .
     Robert E. Grese, professor of landscape architecture at the University of Michigan, describes Bailey as, "one of the seminal figures in American Horticulture, plant science, landscape gardening, and conservation in the twentieth century." This volume features selections from Bailey's, The Outlook to Nature along with Grese's trove of luminaries culled from his research including Frederick Law Olmsted, Jens Jensen, Andrew Jackson Downing, Horace William Shaler Cleveland, and O.C. Simonds.
    This gives us a good excuse to revisit a selection from Bailey's gem of a book. As Bailey explained, "The outlook  to nature is the outlook to optimism, for nature is our governing condition." Enjoy!_______________

The out-of-doors.

By nature, I mean the natural out-of-doors, — the snow and the rain, the sky, the plants, the animals, the garden and the orchard, the running brooks, and every landscape that is easy of access and undefiled.

     Every person desires these things in greater or lesser degree: this is indicated by the rapidly spreading suburban movement, by the vacationing in the country, and by the astonishing multiplication of books about nature. Yet there are comparatively very few persons who have any intimate contact with nature, or any concrete enjoyment from it, because they lack the information that enables them to understand the objects and phenomena.

Not All the People Should Live on Salary

L.H. Bailey (left) at his home in Ithaca, New York

A mediation from L.H. Bailey for Labor Day

 

Not all the people should live on salary.

I think that we need the example and influence of men who do not live on salary. One reason why boys leave the farm is because in other occupations they are offered wages or salary, and the risk of livelihood is thereby reduced; but the very lessening of this risk sacrifices much of a man's self-reliance, — it loses him his independence, not only in directly securing the means of support, but, what is more serious, in his attitude toward society.

     Salary-practice is a concomitant of organization, and it goes with social stratification. The man who receives salary exclusively depends on some one else, and his opinions are controlled, or at least modified, thereby. Often to a very large extent he loses his autonomy. There is a general feeling among salaried men that they must engage inother business in unsalaried hours, not always so much, I think, because they desire to add to their income, as to satisfy the longing for some greater measure of independence.

     The farmer is about the only man left who lives directly on his own efforts, without the aid of salary, speculation, or the non-intrinsic profits that accrue from trade. There is a tendency to organize agriculture, and thereby to develop salaries in it; this tendency is no doubt to be commended, yet I look with some apprehension to the effect that it may have on independent effort and opinion. Outlook to Nature, - L.H. Bailey

Fancy Clothing is One of the Greatest Obstacles to a Knowledge of Nature

Fancy clothing is one of the greatest obstacles to a knowledge of nature: in this regard, the farm boy has an immense advantage. It is a misfortune not to have gone barefoot in one's youth. A man cannot be a naturalist in patent-leather shoes. The perfecting of the manufacture of elaborate and fragile fabrics correlates well with our growing habit of living indoors. Our clothing is made chiefly for fair weather; when it becomes worn we use it for stormy weather, although it may be in no respect stormy weather clothing. If our clothes are not made for the weather, then we have failed to adapt ourselves to our environment, and we are in worse state than the beasts of the field. Much of our clothing serves neither art nor utility. Nothing can be more prohibitive of an interest in nature than a millinery "hat," even though it be distinguished for its floriculture, landscape gardening, and natural history.

—L. H. Bailey, The Outlook to Nature, 1905

Bailey on Evolution & the Rights of Others

    Evolution is the point of view of otherism and altruism.

It was the old idea that the earth is the center of the universe: this geocentric doctrine Copernicus disproved. It was the old idea that all things exist merely to please man: this hominocentric doctrine Darwin disproved.

    Every animal and plant lives for itself and apparently as completely as if man had never existed. The recognition of this fact is one of the first steps toward a real regard for the rights of others, and consequently toward elimination of selfishness. Yet we still seem to think that every animal and plant was created for some purpose other than for itself, and we are always asking what every organism is "for." -L.H. Bailey, The Outlook to Nature, 1915

Wes Jackson Puts Bailey at the Top

Wes Jackson, known for being the co-founder and current president of The Land Institute, named, "the grand old Cornell dean," Liberty Hyde Bailey in his personal agricultural Hall of Fame list. "[Bailey] kept looking back to nature as the standard or measure against which we should judge our agricultural practices. The Outlook to Nature appeared in 1905 and The Holy Earth in 1915."

Read the entire article at:

A Conversation With Wes Jackson, President of the Land Institute - The Atlantic

Related articles

• Technological fundamentalism: Why bad things happen when humans play God (energybulletin.net)

The Habit of Grumbling at the Weather

The habit of grumbling at the weather is the most senseless and futile of all expenditures of human effort. Day by day we complain and fret at the weather, and when we are done with it we have — the weather. The same amount of energy put into wholesome work would have set civilization far in advance of its present state. Weather is not a human institution, and therefore it cannot be "bad." I have seen bad men, have read bad books, have made bad lectures, have lived two years about Boston,— but I have never seen bad weather! — L.H. Bailey, Outlook to Nature