I have a farm in one of the sand-counties of central Wisconsin. I bought it because I wanted a place to plant pines. One reason for selecting my particular farm was that it adjoined the only remaining stand of mature pines in the County.

This pine grove is an historical landmark. It is the spot (or very near the spot) where, in 1828, a young Lieutenant named Jefferson Davis cut the pine logs to build Fort Winnebago. He floated them down the Wisconsin River to the fort. In the ensuing century a thousand other rafts of pine logs floated past this grove, to build the empire of red barns now called the Middle West.

This grove is also an ecological landmark. It is the nearest spot where a city-worn refugee from the south can hear the wind sing in tall timber. It harbors one of the best remnants of deer, ruffed grouse, and pileated woodpeckers in southern Wisconsin. 

My neighbor, who owns the grove, has treated it rather decently through the years. When his son got married, the grove furnished lumber for the new house, and it could spare such light cuttings. But when war prices of lumber soared skyward, the temptation to slash became too strong. Today the grove lies prostrate, and its long logs are feeding a hungry saw. 

By all the accepted rules of forestry, my neighbor was justified in slashing the grove. The stand was even-aged; mature, and invaded by heart-rot. Yet any schoolboy would know, in his heart, that there is something wrong about erasing the last remnant of pine timber from a county. When a farmer owns a rarity he should feel some obligation as its custodian, and a community should feel some obligation to help him carry the economic cost of custodianship. Yet our present land-use conscience is silent on such questions. 

Extracted from "The Ecological Conscience" by Aldo Leopold. 1947.