Week #1:
Date: April 4th. 2024
Time: 10:30-11am
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm Greenhouse
Quote of the Day:
“We see agriculture as something that takes away freedom and not something that gives freedom.”
Alpha Sennon, 2017 TEDTALK titled “Why Farm?”
Description of Activity: To prepare for my first week of working on the eggplant project in spring quarter, I read a chapter titled “Eggplant (Garden Egg)” from the book, The Lost Crops of Africa. From that chapter, I gained background on the history of African eggplants, and their significance to traditional diets, and local rural economies. On Thursday of week one, I helped collect eggplant data for the first time with Laura and Aaron. We first recorded the temperature inside the green house, then counted how many seeds had germinated in each of the four flats. Finally, we collected the average soil temperature of the four different flats containing the distinct eggplant varieties. We used a soil temperature measurement instrument to collect the data.
Reflection: The cultural significance of eggplants for West Africans is part of why Sarah Dyer wanted to start cultivating these varieties at the Evergreen Organic farm. Seattle has a large West African refugee population, making it so there is a built-in customer base for locally produced African eggplant in Washington state. In my Land Based Learning class with Sarah Williams, we have been exploring questions around how to heal the relationship African and indigenous communities have with agriculture due to the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Trinidadian food justice activist, Alpha Sennon, is an example of someone who is working to heal his people’s generational trauma by transforming agriculture into something that empowers rather than disempowers.
In the coming weeks I plan on reading more about how plant vigor studies are conducted as data collection on seed germination for this project has now come to a close. I want to answer the questions:
- What is the definition of “vigor”? (plant vigor specifically)
- What parameters should be used when collecting data on plant vigor?
- What are the ethical implications of introducing non-native crops to land that has been colonized?
In the book, The Lost Crops of Africa, chapter seven discusses African eggplant/‘Gilo’, explaining how this plant is “very adaptable”(p.141) but that “uncertainty fogs its adaptability to cooler climates”(p.143). I’m curious about how other crops from warm climates have been adapted to fit cooler ones.
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WEEK#2
Dates: Mon April 8, 2024 and Fri April 12, 2024
Location: Organic Farm
Times: Mon 3:30-5pm, Fri 10am-1:30pm
Quote of the Week:
“Indigenous Peoples…have already experienced the end of the world. They have already lived through the apocalypse and have wisdom for us as we face one now.”
(Augustine, p.260)
Activity Descriptions:
Monday—- We had our weekly team meeting on in which we established crucial information about roles, calendar, group expectations and readings. I took on the role of note-taker/scribe and helped with putting together an agenda for our meeting.
Friday— We had our first meeting with Martha Rosemeyer, Robin Morgan, and Sarah Williams, in which we got advice about how to deal with the eggplant seedlings that were mouse-nibbled. Sarah Dyer walked the faculty advisers through how the team is planning to prep eggplant beds for planting later in the quarter. After our team meeting, Laura and Aaron went to the germination lab. Meanwhile, I put all of the seedling trays onto buckets so they would not be vulnerable to being eaten by mice again, and recorded our first set of data for all of the seedlings. I numbered each seedling 1-24 for all four varieties and the control group “Orient Express.” Afterwards I recorded the heights of each seedling.
Reflection: It was exciting to get our first set of data for the eggplant seedlings. I chose the quote above from my Land Based Learning program text, So We and Our Children May Live, because I have been thinking about Aaron’s literature review question regarding the origins of eggplant. Plants, like indigenous people, have lived through many dramatic environmental changes throughout our earth’s history. I wonder what stories of resilience eggplant has to impart to farmers working to adapt to climate change and degraded soils.
Sources: Augustine, S., Hostetler, S., (2023). So We and Our Children May Live, Herald Press, [Chapter 10: “Choosing Hope and Humility,” p. 249-263].
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Week #3
Date: April 15, 2024
Location: Organic Farm Evergreen
Time: Monday 3:30-5:30pm
Quote of the Week:
“Even revolutions need accountants.”
Leticia Nieto, Evergreen staff at 2024 Equity Symposium
Description of Activity: As a group, we had our weekly individual check-ins and clarifying questions before launching into repotting the control group (“Orient Express”) seedlings. Before repotting the seedlings, it was necessary to record data for these first plants using parameters chosen by Sarah Dyer that we will be using for the plant “vigor” study. We are using the parameters of base to apical meristem, base to first “true leaves,” width/length of first true leaves, and circumference of stem base. We had to use rulers, but I’m hoping that by week four we can use a caliper to get more accurate data. Additionally, by next week we will have printed data sheet templates so that recording data will be easier.
Reflection: It was interesting to contrast the work our eggplant team is doing with the theme of “building skillful coalition” that was Evergreen’s focus for its 2024 Equity Symposium. Working with people is the hardest and most rewarding part of field-work because everyone has slightly different visions for how things should be done. Leticia Nieto’s assertion that “Even revolutions need accountants,” reminded me how for every leader, there are many figures in the background working to support them. This eggplant variety trial will require many hands to see it through to its fruition in the Fall. Re-asserting “land as pedagogy” as stated by Leanne Simpson in the book, As We Have Always Done, is the purpose of having programs like Land Based Learning at Evergreen State College (TESC). The eggplant variety trial research fits in with the larger movement to diversify crop cultivation, and find plants that can adapt to the more volatile weather patterns brought on by climate change. With the eggplant variety trials, we will be learning from the plants whether ‘Gilo’ eggplant can grow successfully in the PNW.
“…due to the overdependence on the three major food crops (wheat, maize and rice) and their subsequent shortages, the conservation, improvement and utilization of…plant species such as African eggplant is of utmost importance. The cultivation of underutilized crops provides greater genetic biodiversity, and can potentially improve food security.” (Han, 2021)
Ultimately, I hope field trials like this one will empower future Evergreen students to pursue crop experimentation projects on the Evergreen Organic Farm. During the summer months, it will be especially interesting to note what kind of diseases/pests take over the plants, if any.
Sources:
Han, Mei, Kwadwo N. Opoku, Nana A. B. Bissah, and Tao Su. 2021. “Solanum aethiopicum: The Nutrient-Rich Vegetable Crop with Great Economic, Genetic Biodiversity and Pharmaceutical Potential” Horticulturae 7, no. 6: 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7060126
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Week #4
Date: April 22, 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm
Time: Monday 3:30-6:30pm
Quote of the Week:
“If you want to learn about something, you need to take your body onto the land and do it. Get a practice.”
(Leanne Simpson, “Land as Pedagogy,” p.165)
Description of Activity: This week, I worked with Sarah D., Aaron, and Laura to collect our first set of comprehensive data on the four eggplant varieties for our vigor study. We used data sheet templates created by Sarah D. and printed out by Aaron. I was able to get a food-grade caliper from the farm classroom, but discovered that it needed battery charging so we used rulers again to take plant measurements. Our team split into pairs, with one person writing down plant measurements and another person calling them out. It took about an hour and a half to collect all of the data as efficiently as we could. As we collected data we also repotted over 100+ seedlings so their roots would have room to continue expanding.
Reflection: Collecting data on the seedlings this week allowed me to learn about all of the different ways a plant’s growth can be impaired by factors humans don’t understand. For example, Sarah D. noticed how a couple seedlings had “puckered” leaves that could have been due to disease, lack of watering, insects, seed etc. Sarah D. also found a seedling that had undergone some sort of mutation, where the leaf had split in two. The Land Based Learning program I’m part of has discussed the role of mutation in creating adaptations in oysters and wheat varieties. In terms of understanding vigor, we are dealing with multiple different variables that could be impacting the seedlings:
- organic/GMO
- variable watering
- sunlight/temperature
- mouse damage
- insect damage
Moving forward, I hope to gain further understanding of basic botany principles. I’m now able to identify the apical meristem, cotyledons, and first true leaves pretty easily for an eggplant. Over the next few weeks I hope to make some illustrations demonstrating how we collected data.
*I have learned that vascular plants are separated into two broad categories; angiosperms and gymnosperms. Eggplants are dicots that fall within the angiosperm category, meaning they are flowering plants that have cotyledons (first seedling leaves) that grow in pairs. Wheat, the crop that we have been focusing on in Land Based Learning for Spring quarter, is also an angiosperm, but is a monocot, meaning that it produces a single cotyledon.
Greek etymology:
angiosperm — angio (“container, vessel”) sperma (“seed”)
gymnosperm — gymno (“naked”) sperma (“seed”)
Sources:
Simpson, Leeanne Betasamosake (2017). “Land as Pedagogy,” As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, pp. 145-173.
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Week #5: *** Away on field-trip with Land-Based-Learning program ***
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Week #6
Date(s): May 6 and May 8, 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm
Time(s): Wednesday 3:30-4:30pm, Thursday 10am-3pm
Quote of the Week:
“Mechanized man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress in cleaning up the landscape on which…he must live out his days. It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.”
(Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, p. 50)
Description of Activities:
Wednesday —– We had our weekly meeting on wednesday to discuss next steps we need to take to get the beds ready for trans-planting eggplant seedlings. Emerson and I listened in about how re-taking the vigor study data went in week five because both of us were gone on a program field-trip. We also discussed what we wanted to go over during the bi-weekly check-in meeting with our advisors. (soil tests of the beds, new parameters for vigor study, and spading the beds to prep them for transplanting)
Thursday —– Aaron and I met up during the Land-Based-Learning program’s morning Farm Practicum time to remove Canadian thistle and morning glory from the bed we plan on using for the eggplant seedlings.
Reflection:
It took several hours to remove a majority of the Canadian thistle. By the time that I left the farm, around 3pm, there were still strong patches of thistle and morning glory left. I used a hori hori, wheelbarrow, and fork to remove the weeds while trying to not disturb the cover crop. To accomplish this task more efficiently in the future, I would fork-up the whole bed and sift out the weeds later once the soil has been loosened.
Canadian thistle is native to Europe, and was introduced to North America in the early 1600s. It is an aggressive plant that has been designated as a “noxious weed” by both the U.S. and Canada due to its harmful effects on crop yield and native flora. It also goes by the names “creeping thistle,” “cursed thistle,” and “California thistle.”
There are 1000+ species of morning glory, some of which are native to Mexico, and others which are native to Europe, Africa, and Asia. Morning glory is really difficult to get rid of once established in an area due to its large root system. Field-bindweed, unlike morning glory, is a perennial plant and very similar in appearance to morning glory. I don’t feel confident in telling them plants apart yet, but have learned that bindweed has “arrow-shaped” flowers, and morning glory has “heart-shaped” flowers.
In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold writes of the shrinking populations of native prairie flora around his home-state of Wisconsin, and poses the question “How could a weed be a book?”(Leopold, Sand County Almanac, p. 50) Learning more about morning glory, Canadian thistle, and bindweed, has reminded me that most violence is done in ignorance. To avoid committing unintentional violence on the land, one must learn to listen to the land. This is a life-long practice. I wonder what the land will say about solanum aethiopicum?
Week #7
Date(s): May 13 and May 15, 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm
Time(s): Monday 1-3pm, Wednesday 1-2:30pm
Quote of the Week:
“Soil is made up of the alive, dead, and very dead.”
Sarah Dyer
Description of Activities:
Monday—– We had our weekly meeting to do a quick check-in. Only Laura, Sarah D., and I were able to attend. Sarah D. worked on applying a second coat of soapy liquid to the eggplant seedlings to try and kill the aphid colonies that have become attracted to the plants. Laura and I went to the variety trial bed and spent a few hours working to remove the last of the Canada thistle and morning glory. Sarah Dyer joined us part-way through to help scrape wood chips out of the bed as best as we could. The wood chips ended up being too deeply embedded in the soil to be able to remove them.
Wednesday —– We had another meeting on the farm with the whole group present so that everyone could get an update on what still needs to get done. Sarah Dyer shared that she has been consulting with Beth to get advice on how to amend the field-plot we are responsible for maintaining, and to do calculations on what percentage/variety of lime to add to the soil. We had individual check-ins. Then we moved all of the eggplant seedlings out of the greenhouse into the “RBG” open-air greenhouse to harden them off in-time before transplanting.
Reflection:
I hadn’t realized the level of thought and planning that needs to go into amending soil. The soil test that was originally done on the field-plot our group is using seems to have been inaccurate because it was a general soil test that took an average of a larger area that has a wide variety of soil characteristics. Getting to hear from Sarah D. about her consultations with Beth, Ben, and Martha regarding applications of lime and fertilizer has also taught me that there are hundreds of different ways to go about soil restoration. There are no quick-fixes to soil degradation, but as David Montgomery wrote about in his book, Growing A Revolution, soil can be restored relatively quickly (within 10-15 years) if given sufficient organic matter. However, our team doesn’t have 10 years to accomplish our three-quarter-long variety trial, hence our use of “Perfect Blend,” lime, feather meal, and kelp meal.
Week #8
Date(s): May 22-24th, 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm
Time(s): Wednesday 3:30pm-5:30pm, Thursday 9:30am-11am, 12:45-3:30pm, Friday 10am-11am
Quote of the Week:
“A satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant…a hobby… is an assertion of those permanent values which the momentary eddies of social evolution have contravened or overlooked.”
(Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, p. 182)
Description of Activities:
Wed— We had a group meeting and finally confirmed the soil fertility plan to prepare our plot for transplanting. We also checked on the eggplant seedlings to see how they did over the weekend and whether they are handling the colder nights that have been 45-49 degrees F. Some of the seedlings had damage from new pests in addition to the aphid colonies (thrips and leaf-miners). We measure out the bed and made it 20ft by 43 ft, with 32 inch beds and 18 inch paths.
Thurs—- I worked with Aaron in the morning to collect fertilizer buckets, perfect blend, feather meal, and twine. Much of the Practice of Organic Farming Program, including Ben, were at a lecture, so we had to wait to get trained on the harrow until the afternoon. After Aaron and I raked some remaining wood-chips from our field-plot, we broke for lunch and returned to the farm @12:45pm. We spread 51 lbs of perfect blend onto the field using yogurt containers. Afterwards, Ben Hudson and Beth showed me how to use the gas-powered harrow. The field-plot had a lot of grass turf along its left edge. Aaron and I followed Ben’s recommendation to fork the grass turf out and then go over it again with a harrow. Aaron left at 2:30pm to pick-up petri dishes at the Evergreen lab for our germination study, but the lab hours are 9am-3pm, so they were closed by the time he got up there. We didn’t have time to add feather meal as planned.
Fri—- I came in the morning on Friday to tie-up stakes with twine to be able to hoe in straight furrows along the five beds for feather-meal application. I began re-measuring the beds because we had to remove the bamboo sticks when I went over the field with the harrow. However, I ran out of time because I had to leave for work. The rest of the team (Laura, Sarah Dyer, and Aaron) came at 11:30am to finish applying feather meal to the beds before the bi-weekly advisor meeting that started at 3pm.
Reflection:
This week has been more challenging because our team was split between working on getting the germination study off the ground while also preparing the field-plot for our seedling transplants. To prevent communication mishaps and scheduling conflicts during summer quarter, it could be helpful to have a shared document amongst ILC participants documenting specific roles that are needed so that tasks (such as data collection/processing, watering, pest-management, weeding, harvesting, and fruit-processing) are delegated more evenly amongst people in the group and get done on-schedule. It also would be helpful to have a list of weekly tasks, that are ranked by importance, so that actions that are more essential to the success of the group are prioritized.
I also enjoyed learning that leaf-miners and thrips are other local pests that attack plants in the PNW. I wonder if there are other crops on the organic farm that often get attacked by leaf-miners/thrips/eggplants? I wonder if the eggplant varieties would be attracting those types of pests if they weren’t being grown in such close-proximity with other plants? I plan on researching more about leaf-miners, thrips, and aphids in the coming weeks, as they have a direct impact on plant vigor.
Week #9
Date(s): May 27, May 29, 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm
Time(s): Monday 10am-3:30pm, Wednesday 1-4:30pm
Quote of the Week:
“The wholly tamed farm offers not only a slender livelihood but a constricted life…there is pleasure to be had in raising wild crops as well as tame ones…Perhaps [the Wisconsin farm couple growing tamarack] wish for their land what we all wish for our children—not only a chance to make a living but also a chance to express and develop a rich and varied assortment of inherent capabilities, both wild and tame. What better expresses the land than the plants that originally grew on it?”
(Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, p. 203,)
Description of Activities:
Monday —–
- Had our weekly check-in meeting
- Laid down drip-tape and established with Beth that our field-plot would be on a separate watering timer than the adjacent fields
- Attached drip tape to the water pump using hose adapters and plastic tubing
- Laid down the plastic sheeting on the five field-plot beds, and buried it (this was difficult due to the wind and relative flimsiness of the black plastic)
- Confirmed with professor Ben Hunsdorfer that he will be our project’s upper-division co-sponsor for the summer 2024 quarter
Wednesday —–
Tasks Completed:
- Treated the eggplant seedlings with insect-killing soap for the last time this quarter (this was our fifth time doing so) — Emerson and Arrya helped by getting the undersides of the leaves after I sprayed them
- Collected vigor data, and trained Harry, who will be joining the project in summer, about the project parameters
- Measured and labeled out blocks for the different varieties
- Had our close-out meeting where we discussed:
- plans for transplanting next Monday @3:30pm
- How to register for this project during summer quarter
- Designing a guide-book for the summer-team, so people are held accountable to caring for the plants
- How many credits people want to register for in summer (Emerson, *Arrya and *Harry are undecided)
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| Week 9 | Memorial Day 10am-3:30pm-Lay down drip irrigation, plastic, mark where holes will go | Group Meeting @1pm-4:30pm Collect vigor data and measure field blocks(4 hours) | Process vigor data and upload to Xcel sheet (Sarah D.) Calibrate data (Aaron) | Work on summer hand-book Sarah D., pass off WordPress admin to Laura (completed) | Complete draft of vigor study (Aaron) | ||
| Week 10 | Seedling Transplant Day 3:30pm-5:30pm | Library WordPress workshop: 9am-noonto finalize group website | Final Check-In Meeting with Martha/Robin/Ben @3pm 1.Cover timeline 2. who will be continuing in summer/fall? |
Reflection:
This week, for my Land Based Learning program I finished reading A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. A theme that has repeatedly come up for me this quarter is the role of “weeds” in communicating what kind of plant life the land is suitable for supporting. Leopold writes that “weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods,”(Leopold, p.292) meaning that the same level of depth and wisdom can be found in a patch of weeds as can be found in California’s great redwood trees. Sarah Dyer repeatedly mentioned during our soil amendment plan meetings for the eggplant plot that blueberries “would love” to grow in our field plot based on the soil tests, but that “we’re not growing blueberries.” It struck me as odd that we have been working so hard to transform the soil, which has been depleted by years of cultivation with no amendments, into something it no longer is.
Where do we draw the line between cultivation and coercion of land to do something it has no inclination to do? Leopold’s famous quote, “A thing is good when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community,”(p.262) seems like a useful guide to answering this question. However, interpretations of the terms “integrity, stability, and beauty” can vary widely and the biotic community surrounding the Evergreen Organic Farm has been dramatically altered by land development and increasingly dense human populations.
Once the land’s native flora and fauna have largely been eradicated, Leopold’s question of whether ecological “stability” can be “synthesized out of imported plants and animals”(Leopold, p.200) becomes key. What are our parameters for ecological stability if we have only patchy historical records and no healthy ecosystems left to guide us?
- Is it “wrong” to have a farm on land that was originally forest or prairie?
- What role does the Evergreen Organic Farm have in maintaining the “stability” and “integrity” of the biotic community? (ex: Sarah Dyer was very mindful of not over-fertilizing our field-plot so as to attempt to soil leaching excess nutrients into our water-ways)
So far, it seems like solanum aethiopicum doesn’t pose any major threat to the stability or integrity of the farm itself. In fact, our research team’s goal is to enhance the stability of the farm by diversifying its crops and introducing plants that have traits that could make them more resilient to climate change.
Sources:
Leopold, A., (1949). A Sand County Almanac, Oxford University Press, Inc, Ballantine Books.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.
Week #10:
Date(s): June 3rd and 5th. 2024
Location: Evergreen Organic Farm and Daniel J. Evans Library
Time(s): Monday 3:30pm-7pm, Wednesday 9am-noon
Quote of the Week:
“Colonists and Native Americans quickly became aware that weeds
unceremoniously ushered colonial agriculture to native land-land that
according to the dominant agricultural ethos, had not been properly domesticated.
Conquering a new environment was as much a biological process a
political one. Europeans tactically dispatched honeybees and cattle as
agents of ecological imperialism. So too did they allow weeds-which of course cattle and bees helped spread-to further the environmental transformation underway.
Foreign weeds and unprecedented proliferations of native ones
declared the landscape permanently changed, if not newly possessed, while priming it for more systematic exploitation.” (McWilliams, p.304)
Photo by: Oonaugh Foster-Bill
Description:
Monday—-
This week, our project team finally got the eggplants into our field-plot. All five of us met up on Monday at the farm, where the sky promised to start laughing again until its tear drops soaked the ground. Sarah Dyer got stuck in Seattle traffic, so Laura and I worked to get the hori-horis, measuring tape, buckets, and young plants together (which had started becoming suffocated in their tiny pots), and took them out to our field plot. When Sarah Dyer arrived, she started marking where the holes for each of the plants needed to be, with Aaron, Laura, Emerson and I following behind to dig the holes and put in the kelp meal.
Finally, we started transplanting the eggplants from their pots into the ground, and that’s when it started pouring rain. No one minded, but we got pretty muddy. I hid my back-pack under the wagon-cart to keep it from getting soaked.
Wednesday—-
All of us met in the Daniel J. Evans Library for a WordPress workshop. I proof-read Sarah Dyer’s intro paper for the variety trial project, and we discussed end-of-the-quarter wrap-up.
Reflection:
I couldn’t stop thinking about death, bitterness, weeds, and power as Emerson and I started to dig in the soil with our hands, mixing grains of kelp meal with the shadows left by glacial foot steps and volcanic ash that Sarah Dyer told me once swept over the traditional lands of the Squaxin Island Tribe.
In the book, Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital, author J.K. Rowe argues that “Without alternative ways of transforming existential fear,” patterns of seeking out “compensatory power that displaces uncomfortable feelings of fear and belittlement…quickly becom[e] habituated.”(Rowe, p. 29) Rowe’s observations of death-denying cultures have important implications for movements to decolonize our land and food systems in the U.S. If we are to change the way we treat each-other, we must, as Rowe says, “accept the totality of life.” We must accept the bitterness that naturally accompanies free, wild, foods.
This acceptance of death and bitterness requires balance. Having respect for death, and markers for its proximity, such as bitterness, is essential to living mindfully. Different types of earth often taste bitter, yet earth is what gives birth to all life forms that are tied to the land. Earth is what life returns to when it has died. Bitterness marks the transitional note between life and death. The flavor of bitterness was a strong character in the last moments of my grandpa’s life. It was the taste of the “death medication” he voluntarily decided to drink when he had cancer.
Communities have become fragmented and increasingly polarized in the U.S.. Disconnection from land through lack of connection with our food has accelerated this process. The fact that “education” and “culture” are still considered “synonymous with landlessness” as Aldo Leopold writes they were in his time, is a marker that our culture is reaching the end of its life-cycle. We are in the midst of what activists like Joanna Macy call the “Great Turning.”
Planting the seeds of bitter eggplant can be an act of resistance to our white supremacist culture. Watching “The Nettle Dress” with Susan Pavel’s Evergreen Nettle program, taught me that weaving is an act that can help people transform grief into literal material fabric—- a physical manifestation of strength. This strength is needed to build a foundation for a resilient community.
We need to reclaim the tools that help us transform our grief and fear into manifestations of beauty and resilience. We need to reclaim our “hobbies” to resist the new extractivist attention economy that wishes to transform us from natural human beings into mechanized consumers.
Sources:
Rowe, J. K. (2023). Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital. Taylor & Francis.
McWILLIAMS, J. E. (2011). Worshipping Weeds: The Parable of the Tares, the Rhetoric of Ecology, and the Origins of Agrarian Exceptionalism in Early America. Environmental History, 16(2), 290–311. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23049784