ROSE WILDER LANE.....

..."give me time and I will tell you why individualism, laissez faire and the slightly restrained anarchy of capitalism offer the best opportunities for the development of the human spirit."

Rose Wilder Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie books. I adored those books as a child - I must have read them a hundred times over. Adored the writing because I grew up in the Iowa-Wisconsin-Minnesota-South Dakota axis described in the books (well one of those states anyway). I mean, I went to actual prairies on school field trips. And to a place called Living History farms with replicated midwestern farms circa 1800s, 1900s and a 'farm of the future.'

Comments

[calvo]

while living history farms sounds cool, a field trip to a prairie sounds, uhm, a little on the dull side.

was there more to it than I'm imagining?

when I was in grade school our field trips were generally to historic buildings and sites.

then again, this was in new england, where these things abound.

[MD]

Actually, I thought it was beautiful. But then I thought the corn and soybean fields were beautiful too...

[calvo]

I passed a stint of my childhood in the midwest, as well, so I am initmately familiar with the corn and soybean fields.

admittedly, it was kinda neat to have these fields stretching off as far in all directions as you could see, but I think the newness wore off after a summer or two spent detassling corn:

http://mindfully.org/Farm/Detasseling-Faces-Extinction9aug02.htm

[MD]

detassling?

My parents wouldn't let me detassle even though all my friends did.

[MD]

Ok, finally had a chance to read the link. Well-written and oddly touching.

[calvo]

I google-found that article a while ago when I was trying to explain to a friend just what detassling was.

I thought the descriptions captured the activity nicely (though we never had to walk the rows...we rode machinery).

[calvo]

uhm...in all that above, I meant to type "detasseling"

dunno where that extra "e" went.

[MD]

Well, I find correct spelling a form of niggling minor tyranny. But then, I can't spell.

[Ingrid]

I've just read the detasseling link. What an interesting story. And how sad that Dupont is making detasseling extinct to cut out the costs of the detasselers. Something about Dupont's intervention and the invention of male-sterile-seeds gave me the creeps. Wish scientists or bio-engineers - or whoever these clever clogs are - would stop tampering with nature and concentrate on other more important things. Of course, I don't really know what I'm talking about here. I'm probably romanticising the past. Maybe such tinkering with nature will enable greater amounts of corn to be more freely distributed to people who are suffering and facing starvation through droughts, famine, war...