The Margin of Error

In the quest for scientific truth, there is little mention of the fact that during the course of controlled experiment or the gathering of data that the failure of the soda pop machine to dispense the right change to the research scientists altered the outcome of the research to a statistically significant degree. That explains why the space capsule landed in another hemisphere, upside down. Not only did the soda pop machine have such an effect, but so did the bacterially-active bologna and mayonnaise sandwich prepared by the kitchen staff. And the brittle cataracts in the researcher's eyes. And the phone call in the afternoon from the cousin in jail asking for bail money. This is the Wonderful World of Science. Ignore the convict behind the curtain, you are looking at Great Truths.

I think a lot about that phone call from the incarcerated relative, begging for lunch money and a pie with metal-file filling, as I walk about the boreal forest in northern Minnesota in search of things that in all probability do not exist but cannot be excluded without an all-knowing frame of reference, which frame of reference can be approximated through statistically significant sample sizes, generally numbering well less than infinity, which, doggonnit, invariably fail to consider that one sample that contains that which you, in the end, had assumed not to exist. Maybe if we maintain the sample size but enlarge the number of identical studies we can exclude the possibility. Or maybe if we have a massive amount of people say the same thing we can make it come true. Why, the sheer force of my personality might do it. But I am on a tangent and I am struggling to stay on point, as are the rest of my colleagues.
It was a lazy day about the woods and I thought it fine to engage in some informal postulations, perhaps stumbling upon some Higher Truth along the way. Make haste, I said, for a moment you can imagine that the cause of humanity rests on your shoulders. I observed: 1) I am a carbohydrate burning vessel. 2) I exude carbon dioxide 3) I attract carbon dioxide seeking organisms. Perhaps, I surmised, I can determine my "Carbon Footprint" by measuring exactly how many of such organisms were attracted to my person. Determining the total surface area I occupied at that moment, I arrived at 1.94 square meters, a figure, I discovered, that was identical to the amount of surface area occupied by the eleven heavily carbonated feral cats that lived behind our house in South Dakota in 1991 or the eight bottles of Fonseca Vintage Port 1970 in the wine rack. The wine caught the attention of a group of my colleagues, and all at once they set upon a rigorous regression analysis. For two hours, they carried out 16 repeated measurements involving eight independent variables. They found that after each measurement, the dependent variable approached zero. They were on to something. The unknown parameter appeared to be within grasp. They thought it might have something to do with the pizza delivery boy appearing seven times, clearly a random variable, but the exact function wasn't known. But they abandoned the study at the last measure; for all the while they had been carrying on they had found that their own surface area had expanded to a shocking degree, well beyond what anyone would have predicted. The phone rang and it was my cousin again.
Anyhow, a census of the black fly population that taxied about my surface area revealed 6,432 flies. This is some 3000 flies per square meter. Now to be useful, one might say that I need to measure my carbon output and I need to compare this to other carbon producers. But I have already determined that these are 6,432 random variables at any given moment in an environment where I, of 2 square meters, am in search of a species which depends upon my observation for its survival. This search is through third-growth recovering forest, stripped of old growth characteristics, choked with aspen clones and hazelnut thickets and mountain maple and balsam fir deadfall, all observed through the matrix of mosquito netting and the haze of fogged prescription glasses, beaded with rain and perspiration, while an electrolyte-depleted circulatory system produces leg cramps and heat exhaustion and iron streaked rocks send the compass spinning like a roulette wheel and the black flies sound like rain as they bombard my clothing and this is supposed to determine the nonexistence of an object in a 50-acre patch of forest.
The formula should read something like:



Where Y is the rare plant frequency and X represents independent variables including survey intensity, stand potential, phenological stage, light intensity, deadfall proliferation, drought index, spruce budworm kill factor, seral stage, deer density, slope, soil moisture, wind speed, surveyor education, surveyor experience, surveyor organizational skill, surveyor lactate levels, electrolyte imbalance, neurotransmittor depletion, excess body temperature, eyeglass opacity, cornea deterioration, cognitive disassembly, caffeine-induced confidence, memory loss, methamphetamine lab density, mosquito netting shear strength, boot porosity, pencil loss, blister quotient, degree of disorientation, fungal growth rate, bone fracture, anxiety level, battery failure, life insurance dollar amount, declining profit margins, and bitter regret. Each E represents one of 6,432 black flies.
I think I am on to something. Here we begin to figure out the value of B. The dependent variable Y is inversely proportional to the value of the independent variable X and the error factor E. As X and E increase, Y decreases. So let me get this straight: This is to say, as the probability of the existence of a rare species approaches zero, so do I.


From northern Minnesota:
Dryopteris fragrans, or Fragrant fern. Rare in WI, but common in MN. Very pleasant smell when crushed. Found on sheltered, vertical cliff face, typical habitat.

Anytown, ND

As I walk, I feel the need to run.
Children used to skip along on the sidewalks in this town. There were twelve blocks here, each ringed by sidewalks that passed tall homes with porches, whitewashed churches, a high school, a courthouse, and a business district with the glass storefronts and two story facades and stamped metal siding and bald men in aprons standing behind counters. People watched parades from these sidewalks, and weddings and funerals and political speeches and auctions. They waved to neighbors here. They raised families.
The children would race along these sidewalks, breathless, until they came upon crude squares drawn on the sidewalk with stolen chalk. They would skid to a stop, piling up behind the leader like cattle loading into stock cars. These were the hopscotch squares. They would appear each afternoon at a different location along the sidewalk corridor. Nobody seemed to know who drew them. The children would fall into line, silently arranging their clothes. Then, one by one, each would balance himself, measure his step and hop along in sequences of one or two feet, counting aloud to the last square. Then they would run along. Think of it. A few minutes balancing over distorted geometric figures etched by unseen hands accomplished more than nine months staring at a shock-haired teacher scribbling circular madness on slate.
Seventy years later, the sidewalks are overgrown with caragana and lilac bushes. The town has been stripped of population by war, drought, dust, accident, debt, boredom, and disillusionment. The chalk is gone. The school was struck by lightning and burned down. The last mayor died decades ago. The church buried its last parishioner. The children stopped counting.
Now it is night. It is winter, January, deep in January, when the sun cannot bear to watch. When winter charges out of the boreal forests of Saskatchewan, raging and slicing, and slays everything in its path. When clouds race in front of the moon as fast as movie frames, piling up on the southeastern horizon. The alcohol in the thermometer freezes. Windmills shatter and send wooden slats into the air. Cattle stagger blindly into ravines and are buried by drifting snow. My eyelids stick together, tears freeze on my face, frost forms on my hood. I cannot feel my feet. The drifts harden like concrete. I grope along one flat snowdune like an old man on the way to the saloon. I lose track. I feel the stinging insult, I hear the barking order to leave right now.
There is a grain elevator towering above me. Augers dangle from the walls probing for spilled grain. Broken windows sound a toothless whistle. A mercury vapor light washes away color. The wind runs across the corrugated steel like a child with a stick running along a picket fence. The panels rattle and shudder and peel away. The entire elevator sways. Snow drifts accumulate on the south side of the elevator, forming a dune across the railroad tracks, tracks abandoned thirty years ago.
I can see in the moonlight the steeple of the old church, two blocks to the south, standing above the 100 year old elms. It is no longer white. Decades of wind, hail, rain, snow, dust and neglect have stripped it, revealing the raw ashen wood returning to the dust from which it came. The church bell rings in the wind, steadily, unwaveringly, like a ship's bell sounding distress. And it rings in time with the swaying of the grain elevator. I look up and now the power lines and phone lines have the same rhythm. And the road signs. And the courthouse flagpole. It's harmony. The entire town sways.
I hear it, I get the message. I run.

Market Day

The grass chattered as we passed, carried against our will by some 40 mile an hour, subzero wind that charged from the Alberta prairie, broke through a border crossing, and kidnapped us on the open range. We raised our guns but we were subdued. Eyes filled with tears, faces turned down, we surrendered. Grain silos shuddered. Power lines wailed. They say the customs agent turned his head.
It's Shopping for Organically Fed Venison with your host, James Nauertz.
Every year, there is a price: It could be a long, cold, gray arm that reaches out of the slurried, bottomless creek and pulls one of us under, a muffled shout, then silence. Did you say something? Or maybe you are on your knees, in penitent mood, exposed to the world beneath a full moon, winds blowing the snow like desert sand, while you pound on the side of the locked camper like Fred Flintstone. Or you are creeping along unnamed roads, shadowed by an angry rancher or two, activist frontier justices, single-handedly redefining the limits of the first and fourth amendments, anti-federalists, a domestic faction searching of a large, captive audience. Usually there is an evening at Edith Dysentary's cafe, with the badly charred chef, and bowls of fluffy Cryptosporidium Soup, self-replicating dinnerware, four-dimensional jello, a scenic tour of the petroglyphs mounting at the salad bar, and diversion provided by the seven-armed waitress and her daughter, Methyl. Just can't take your eyes off it.

Not a very fair trade, I figure, as we drag a mule deer across the prairie against its will. I will never get used to this.

James Nauertz, Neighborhood Food Pantry, exploring the niche.

This End Up

So this is what it has come to.
Nineteen reports written this season, mostly about rare plants.
It's a formidable task, toiling beneath a relentless and deafening barrage of deadlines. Sitting on an orange crate in this unheated office, typing on some antique Royal beneath a flickering light bulb, brushing away the flakes of lead paint that fall from the ceiling, gnawing on my leather belt to stave off the pangs of hunger. My shoes disappeared long ago. I think that each report was due at an earlier date than the previous report. There, another one hits the door. I dive beneath the desk. I jump at the sound of the water pipes rattling, my nerves are so shot.
I had an idea. To solve the problem, I started writing the bibliography first, then worked backward. That way, I could say that I was finishing up when I started and say so with the utmost confidence. I figured, the longer I wrote, the earlier it would get. Everybody comes out a winner and I am free. But as the report progressed, the less I knew and, when I had reached the end, it got real vague - the professionals call it abstract - and then I didn't know anything at all, as if nothing ever happened. This is what I know now and sadly, I am still confident. And then these people claiming to be my clients whom I do not recognize pummel me with questions I cannot answer and threaten me with things I cannot comprehend. I am sure of that. This is not working out as I had hoped.

I am way too tired to make any sense at this moment and it is entirely possible that this condition predates the report, in which case it can be expected that some agency out there will be announcing some revolutionary findings in the ecological fields, sending the demagogues scurrying for another bandwagon. I can hear them now: We must act! We must be bold!
Man, I often wonder if anyone actually reviews the data in my spreadsheets.
So, before anyone storms the Bastille, maybe they should look at the numbers. I mean, I have no idea what I mean.

Have a look:
Eriogonum visheri survey 2006 - Grand River National Grassland
Chenopodium subglabrum survey 2007 - Grand River National Grassland
Talinum parviflorum survey 2008 - Cedar River National Grassland

No Sign of Life

I hear whispers but they might be leaves rustling.

This blog itself threatens all claims I may make to a presence in the blog-o-sphere. It is unnerving to see that nothing out there is responding to what I am not saying, raising questions about us all. That is, Am I not OK, are you not OK. Like a faulty probe lowered down into a mineshaft, one side wonders if all were overtaken by carbon monoxide, the other wonders if all were vaporized in some atomic blast. Could we all be right?
As it is, we spent a summer slogging about the northern tier of states in search of vanishing and nonviable species and then a fall thrashing about the keyboard, trying to remember it all. On the other end of that thought string there is an idea and it might be recalled, but the string has come undone, the images spin off in all directions, and all I see is a flurry of species, like a deck of cards tossed in the air. Is there anything in there? Deep down, I wonder if I am really asking this.
This will be all over with soon enough, much like the vanishing species, and nobody will know what it is that they have lost. Silence, memory, I have to believe that I am well.

Motion Sickness

Where am I.

We headed to North Dakota to look for eagles. This was an aerial survey, in the western badlands. While I am not terrified by flight or by eagles, I am easily disoriented, befuddled, vertiginous, and ultimately degastricized when placed in spinning rooms, so I opted to stay on the ground. Amy took to the skies. The pilot was a Boyd Trester, of Sentinel Butte, ND, at the controls of a Piper Super Cub, an inveterate pilot of advanced flight and remote sensing skills. At 67 years old, 80 miles an hour, and 100 feet above the ground, he reads the ground like newsprint.

No eagles were found, but they saw plenty of nests, prairie dogs, porcupine, magpies, coyotes, elk, mule deer, antelope, and one crazed biologist wandering in circles on the prairie below, wondering why he agreed to stay on the ground. This was followed by doubt if he were actually on the ground, then compass readings, then conviction he was on the ground, then he took to wondering why he was on the ground again and the cycle began anew.
Break time, and they slipped out of the sky and skipped along a gravel road for 100 feet before coming to a stop. They laughed and marveled. I drove up to meet them, they offered their sympathy, described the earth in great detail, then traveled another 100 feet and they were airborne again. I resumed circling.
Here is the problem. I am attempting to follow a blurry map coiled in my trembling hand while the earth rotates at a thousand miles an hour from west to east while it revolves some sixty thousand miles an hour around the sun while the solar system revolves at some unfathomable speed around some central point in the galaxy while the galaxy moves with explosive force away from a central point in the universe while, it is proposed, the universe moves away from a central point amidst other universes while, it may be postulated, still other universe clusters emerge from some theoretical haze as covens of babbling astronomers prepare to describe even more clusters of universe clusters within universe clusters moving about some point somewhere, which point, for all we know, exists at this precise moment only in some astronomer's mind. It is enough to make your head spin.
While in Belize I spun around on my feet for three weeks searching for my shadow, but found none, and then I gave up. This was alarming. This occupied my mind for much too long, and I began to char and desquamate beneath the torrid tropical sun. All along, it was directly overhead, out of view, beyond reach, the fabled ascian madness. How can it be light when there is no light? I swatted at it, expecting to bat it to the ground where I could steady it with my glare. But it evaded me, like deerflies buzzing about my head. It was for this, among other things, that I returned to the Northwoods, and now, deerflies again, but the sun is visible in the southern sky. At high noon. Out of habit now, I swat at them and suddenly it gets very dark. A dog barks. A whippoorwill sings. Men fire arrows into the blackness.
At night the frogs sound like science fiction. A large silver ship lands on the shores of a bog, chirping, and dozens of platy warriors angulate out the trap door, swell their throats, and melt my mind with high frequency waves. I open my mouth and confess everything: the grade school pranks, the dinner cancellations, the size of the fish, my mother's maiden name. The frogs fall silent. I am ashamed. What will they do now? To the west, a fog rolls in from the surrounding hills. Ten minutes later it envelops the bog and swallows the ship. Eventually, everything slips into the haze and soon, for all I know, nothing was ever there. It could have been a passing thought. I am relieved.
The next morning, I find that my bank account has been drained dry. That night, the frogs were louder than ever. My night is tortured, I cannot sleep; my mind is spinning.

Running on Fumes

I see smoke.

A woman down the road tells me that her husband was bitten by a Fer-de-lance and died quickly. She said this as she stood by an empty washing machine washing clothes by hand in a galvanized tub. The locals say that 'you die right on the spot.' They saw one crossing the road the other night and the next day the neighbors set the woods on fire. Fires burn all over the landscape here, on the same scale that they burn in Florida in late spring, but with much less hysteria. In fact, not much more than a passing glance. What gets attention are busses, and the eyes are almost always fixed on the horizon, scanning it for a bus that never comes. An abandoned car sits in the field that burns.
This is savanna down here, pine, palmetto, and oak, designed to burn in the dry season. But fire here barely leaves a mark. It seems the grass is greening up right behind the flames. Within a few weeks, there is no trace. This is not like the Rocky Mountains, where the Lodgepole pines will memorialize some conflagration for 20 years before they tire of it and lay down. There are innumerable burned tree stumps in the Great Lakes forests, the ink stained fingerprint of a murderous fire, some maybe a hundred years old. It is more like the fires in the Great Plains, where some lightning shocks the prairie and the wind whips up and the grass sheds flames thirty feet high running fifty miles an hour, outracing cattle and horses and rabbits and firefighters, but behind the flames, about two weeks away, is green grass. And, centuries ago, three weeks behind the grass were the herds of bison.

So the machinery is still here - the components and the processes; the Fer-de-lance, the Jaguar, the Harpie eagle, the fires - sort of like that abandoned car that now burns with the grass and palmetto and oak and occasional plastic bottle. A few hours ago, portions of it could have been salvaged, why, it might have even started up with a few adjustments. It was all there. But the fire takes out the brake lines, vacuum lines, spark plug wires, gasoline lines, and in a whumph! there goes the gas tank too.

I look out across the savanna and I see the machinery is still here, why, I can see smoke. Wait a second... Ah, my mistake, it's a smokestack. Enterprise, not fire, consumes the tropics. How far back does one have to go to a time when there wasn't mention of coral bleaching, slash and burn agriculture, caliche, alien species, cattle ranches, gemstone mines, oil wells, paper mills, access roads, poaching, drug plantations, fish farms, and species extinction on the hour, every hour? It seems like yesterday. Salvage? No, run for your life. We have stripped the machinery, stripped it of fire, flood, pollinators, carnivores, watersheds, wetlands, and corridors, and any minute now we'll hit the keystone species and whompfh! there goes the ecosystem.

The Dream Job

My impression is that the impression many readers have is that all I do is sit around in the rocking chair in front of the fireplace, knitting puffy sweaters for poodles, dreaming of the life of a field biologist, delighting in fanciful tales of nail-biting adventure, all-night revelry, and crushing academic victory. I picture myself looking out the window for hours on end, wishing. Hey, I am not the one with the imagination. This could not be further from what is not untrue. Imagine the people reading this blog! We cannot afford to be confused any more than we are.

Look. Here is Ranunculus lappoinicus, or Lapland buttercup, from the Superior National Forest near Grand Marais, Minnesota. I found it in June. It is rare in Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan.

Not much room for argument here. Then there was Geocaulon lividum, or northern comandra. From the same general location as the one above, near Grand Marais, Minnesota. Rare in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire, New York.














The smoking gun. And then Chenopodium subglabrum, or smooth goosefoot, from the Grand River National Grassland in South Dakota. Rare in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota. I found this in August.
















So there. The peer reviewers lay strewn about the fields. The editorial board prints a retraction. The newspaperman weeps. I am not sure if this is making sense; I am getting real stiff from sitting.

Might Makes Truth

I take several multi-layered hats off my pleated brow in respect to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Back in 1994 they codified the byzantine business of naming plants.
Now this is a monumental task. As you may know, living things are represented in the scientific literature and texts in a hierarchical arrangement. This means that they are grouped in descending layers according to increasingly detailed criteria. The theory is that the arrangement reflects the evolutionary descent of the species. The arrangement, from general to specific, is as follows:

Kingdom, Division, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Subspecies, Variety, Cultivated Variety, Form.

The codification looks to reduce or eliminate confusion and reckless habits in the taxonomic culture. As an example, take the orb-weaving spider. Its genus name is Pachygnatha and its species name is zappa. Zappa? Indeed, it is a tribute to the late Frank Zappa, the prolific electric guitarist of the Psychedelic Age of the mid-20th century. Evidently, a black mark on the spider was inspired by Frank's late mustache. The turmoil that results from such a designation can only be imagined. After all, the science behind the hierarchy is staid, peer reviewed, unyielding, unassailable, and dependable, and the scientific communities that surround it are stabilized by its influence. Open the nomenclature to guitarists, and who knows what vermin, vagrants, villians, and vagabonds will infiltrate the hierarchy. Imagine the pressure on simple postulates and theorems! Instability would result and cascade throughout the web of scientific disciplines. Who would want his name connected with collapse of ideas?

The scientific rationale of hierarchy, at a glance:
Species: One text defines it this way: "Ideally and theoretically is a set of individuals closely related by descent from a common ancestor. Members of a species can interbreed with each other successfully but cannot interbreed with individuals of any other species." Yes, there it is. Of course, the text continues, "Most species are not so predictable."
Subspecies: Here it states, "They may not interbreed well with closely related species but an occasional cross pollination results in a viable seed that grows into a fertile adult. If this occurs frequently, the two plant groups may best be considered subspecies of a single species." So there.
Genus: It continues, "Closely related species are grouped into genera. Deciding whether several species are closely related enough to be placed together in the same genus is difficult." Indeed. We have mathematical models that correct human error.
"No objective criteria exist; the decision is entirely subjective and often the cause of great dispute." Not to be alarmed: Scientific progress has come at great human cost. The human toll must be absorbed.
"Both groups of taxonomists agree that the two sets of species are closely related, but they have different opinions as to how much evolution has occurred since the time of the most recent ancestor."¹ This divergence of opinion creates another hierarchical branch, one of which leads to an intellectual dead-end, wherein scientists are isolated from their kind, and the other of which leads to sweeping biological glory and fame.
Variety: This is from the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants: "Variety means a plant grouping within a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank, which grouping, irrespective of whether the conditions for the grant of a breeder's right are fully met, can be defined by the expression of the characteristics resulting from a given genotype or combination of genotypes, distinguished from any other plant grouping by the expression of at least one of the said characteristics and considered as a unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated unchanged." Of course, clear reason tells us that one hierarchical level is preserved for economic integrity. No rational person would disagree with this. The survival of the investigator is essential to scientific progress, hence, intervention in taxonomic systems to preserve economic viability of keystone biologists is justified in this case. And we can state with a fair level of certainty that the anticipated adverse impacts of protected economic interests within the scientific method would be negligible or absent. Error reduction formulations are available to eliminate empirical data suggesting otherwise.
And it is understood, varieties can evolve into subspecies and subspecies can evolve into varieties, provided they are not economically viable or observed. This is verified by the observation that "Europeans tend to use subspecies and expect subspecies to occupy somewhat different areas whereas Americans use variety to denote plants that are different from the plants first put in the species. In practice, the two ranks are used almost interchangeably."² When economic viability is a concern, reclassification reverses the evolutionary process and preserves the investigator and thereby the community that supports him.
Thus, there is the possibility that, under extreme conditions, the non-competitive investigator may find himself mutating into a subspecies unless given protective status. In the absence of intervention, this has led to a disadvantageous condition, one that compels many scientists to flee the University settings and take refuge outside of the intellectual community, to dwell in shame and obscurity, reduced to mere shadows of men, thick-tongued brutes uttering maddening rhyme.
Form: "The rank of taxa below variety; the narrowest taxon; a plant which retains most of the characteristics of the species, but differs in some way such as flower or leaf color, size of mature plant, etc."³ At last! we reach the very bottom of living things, the point at which all scientists converge.
But wait. The Code states, "If a greater number of ranks of taxa is desired, the terms for these are made by adding the prefix sub- to the terms denoting the principle or secondary ranks. A plant may thus be assigned to taxa of the following ranks (in descending sequence): regnum, subregnum, divisio or phylum, subdivisio or subphyllum, classis, subclassis, ordo, subordo, familia, subfamilia, tribus, subtribus, genus, subgenus, sectio, subsectio, series, subseries, species, subspecies, vari-etas, subvarietas, forma, subforma."
And then, "The Code also requires that plant diversity be summarized in a hierarchical structure. Again it is not a question of whether such a structure really exists. the fact that the Code assumes the existence of a species and a hierarchical structure does not mean that the assumptions are correct, merely that, in naming plants one must act as if species are real and nature is hierarchical."²
Eureka!
History may write about the great Evolutionist Wars of the 21st century; the dynamic epoch when swarms of heavily-armed Darwinians battled one another on college campuses around the globe.
May the fittest scientist win!

¹ Mauseth, James D. 2003. Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA.
² Utah State University Herbarium
http://www.herbarium.usu.edu/teaching/4420/botnom.htm
³ GardenWeb
http://glossary.gardenweb.com/glossary/nph-ind.cgi?k=leaf

Television Bites Man

As I lean forward in my armchair, straining to filter the truth about some swollen, beer- gorged celebrity from the composite wisdom of six psychotherapists, one journalism major, and the obligatory, disbarred legal counsel, all expressed in manifold, high-rise discord, I am struck by the fact that this person has made a career out of convincing observers that he is someone other than he really is.

Now this has great implications, only one of which I am aware of. So long as I am convinced he is actually someone else, I would never really meet him, or her for that matter, despite having spoken to and glad-handed with his closest companion, who, sad to say, doesn't know the first thing about this person behind him making him do all of this prattle. Wait a second, aren't you taller in real life? Who speaks to me?

I will continue to bark at the television screen hoping for answers.

Well, then, the television screen barks back, and it is an argument again. Then I see this statement flash before me: 'Atmospheric CO2 enrichment is a boon to the biosphere and it brings prosperity and growth to both man and nature.' I fall back into my chair. Wow. Who said that? I think I get it: we are steadily improving our lot in life through the production of unique polymers, odorless gases, and inorganic wastes. Yes! The best is yet ahead! Wait until you see what we wheel out of our laboratory tomorrow!

Why, look, it's more of us!

This reminds me of the words of H. W. Campbell in his landmark work, Campbell's 1907 Soil Culture Manual - A Complete Guide To Scientific Agriculture as Adapted to the Semi-Arid Region. ¹ This was a book that inspired thousands of people in the early 20th century to migrate to the western Great Plains in the United States to farm the land. It gave detailed instructions on dryland farming technique. If one followed his instructions closely, Mr. Campbell claimed:

"Science in soil culture and the more perfect adaptation of scientific methods to farming would result in doubling the crops in the great semi-arid belt of America. In later years I have made the statement still stronger and have declared, to the amazement of some of the doubting ones, that crops have not been one-fourth of what they should have been in this region."

This sounds familiar. But there is more - his book is 320 pages long.

"God speed the day when the people will realize that these vast plains were not intended to be mere grazing lands for the few cattle companies, but that they will give support to many small herds and flock cared for by many men, and that all the grass and cereals of the best agricultural regions of the earth will be grown here in abundance."

Somewhere on earth, an alarm goes off. Wait, does he mean to say that this scientific method only works with the assistance of God? Was he ex-cathedra when he said this? I need to know.

"A few years hence and the so called 'plains' or 'Great American desert' of the map makers will be dotted with splendid farm houses and great red barns. There will be rows of trees for wind-breaks and shade. There will be orchards and gardens...Looking far into the future one may see this region dotted with fine farms, with countless herds of blooded animals grazing, with school houses in every township, with branch lines of railroads, with electric interurban trolley lines running in a thousand directions, with telephone systems innumerable, with rural mail routes reaching to every door. It is coming just as sure as the coming of another century. The key has been found and the door to riches has been unlocked. How many millions will be supported upon this region? Nobody knows. But the day will come when those who tell of the hesitancy of their forefathers about trying to subdue this region will have to modify the truth if they are to be believed."

Exhibit A:













I like to imagine that Mr. Campbell was never seen again. But if I were to meet him, I wouldn't recognize him anyway.

¹ No longer in print, rarely seen anywhere, but available from Internet Archive.

All For Naught

I hear that they say that canoeists are released at staggered intervals when entering the Boundary Waters, in order to prevent an accumulation of canoeists at the entry points. This can be an unsightly mess. Yet, there are days that seem to drop off of the calendar from time to time and I have wondered if this would solve the problem. Would this improve canoe entanglement, traffic flow, rental shortages, even airplane arrival times? I use these events, or the absence of these events, to plan my week and I have found that it greatly reduces stress and eliminates a lot of work. So, having planned nothing every other day, a lot less than nothing gets done on my day off than were I to be working. This is why I hired myself, and, of course, to keep me company on off days.
So we were in North Dakota for the last half of September, shuffling about the relentless prairie. We never seem to find what we are looking for.















The Botanist, seeking absolutely nothing.

This is not always the case, but it is most often the case. Again, they say that 'the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' I have wondered about this too. Suppose it is in a closed system, and all pieces of evidence are inspected and it is not found? Then what? Is it evidently absent? I don't know, but after walking though monocultures of invasive, adventive, noxious, introduced, and non-native species, I have to wonder, if it is not there, then is it not there? What should one expect in a field of Asiatic steppe grasses planted sixty years ago by terrified scientists? More terrified scientists? How rare are those?
As the fields turn white and shatter, and the soil blows along like a cat running from one's feet, and I see waves of heat rising from the prairie and the bones of bison protruding from a shale bank, I am terrified too; it seems that I am walking in the exact same steps that some agricultural agent did sixty years ago.
So I plod along talking to myself, while my wife listens in.















The Hired Hand, listening to absolutely nothing

Up From The Depths

Now what's going on.

This is how you do an aquatic plant survey on Lac Vieux Desert. Rake in hand, you latch onto the bottom and hoist a fresh salad of sea plants fit for a merman king. Lac Vieux Desert is a large shallow lake, known as the headwaters of the mighty Wisconsin River, historic ricing grounds for the Chippewa Indians, where terrifying storms, churning within rogue low pressure cells spawned over northern Canada, stir the lake, raising dark man-sized forms that twist and twirl for a moment, then slip out of view. Like a mouscallonge feeding on ducklings, the lake swallowed up many hapless voyageurs bobbing on the surface. The ducklings remain to this day.
And so does the terror. It was captured in the song of the voyageur, which, to my surprise, was reproduced with astonishing realism, pensive angst, and seething umbrage, by the journeyman musician Craig Schmoller. As the haunting melody drifted across the still waters, one could imagine that it was 1825. Many old-timers gathered on the shoreline. Many were weeping. Many waved vigorously, as if to warn us of danger. And many turned and raced up toward their houses, just as their forefathers did when the storms approached. As we listened to the sound of doors slamming and windows latching, we looked to the northwest, expecting to see dark clouds on the horizon. But as you can see, it was all blue sky. It was only our imagination.