Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree-and there will be one.

If his back be strong and his shovel be sharp, there may eventually be ten thousand. And in the seventh year he may lean upon his shovel, and look upon his trees and find them good.

God passed on his handiwork as early as the seventh day, but I noticed He has since been rather noncommittal about its merits. I gather either that He spoke to soon, or that trees stand more looking upon than do fig leaves and firmaments.

Why is the shovel regarded as the symbol of drudgery? Perhaps because most shovels are dull. Certainly all drudges have dull shovels, but I am uncertain which of these two facts is cause and which effect. I only know that a good file, vigorously wielded, makes my shovel sing as it slices the mellow loam. I am told there is music in the sharp plane, the sharp chisel, and the sharp scalpel, but I hear it best in my shovel; it hums in my wrists as I plant a pine. I suspect that the fellow who tried so hard to strike one clear note upon the harp of time chose too difficult an instrument.  

These excerpts are from A Sand County Almanac, with essays on conservation from Round River, by Aldo Leopold and published by Oxford University Press (1966).

For more information about Aldo Leopold, see: www.aldoleopold.org