Four Scarce Pamphlets
Various: Various, 1945-1947. First thus. Softcover. Four scarce pamphlets authored by Aldo Leopold shortly before his death:
1) Leopold, Aldo. The Distribution of Wisconsin Hares. Issued April 10, 1947. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Vol. 37, 1945. Describes the shifting ranges of jackrabbits and snowshoe hares and aims "to discuss briefly the probable reasons for boundary changes." Octavo, 14 pages, staple bound. Fine apart from rusting to staples.
2) Leopold, Aldo. The Green Lagoons. Illustrations by H Albert Hochbaum. Reprinted from the August 1945 issue of American Forests, the magazine of the American Forestry Association, Washington DC. An essay about the Colorado River Delta that ultimately appeared in A Sand County Almanac. Quarto, a single sheet folded to four pages: title page and three pages of text. Folded in half to octavo. Good with creasing and tidemarks to outer corners.
3) Leopold, Aldo. The Outlook for Farm Wildlife. Reprinted from Transactions of the Tenth North American Wildlife Conference, 1945, American Wildlife Institute Investment Building, Washington DC. Octavo, a single sheet folded to four pages. A treatise (address) on farming and ecology, concluding with sentiments like "It is clear to me, however, that [industrialization] has overshot the mark, in the sense that is generating new insecurities, economic and ecological, in place of those it was meant to abolish." Full text found here as a PDF. A good copy also with a large tidemark to upper quadrant along fold. One correction in pencil where "tilled" is crossed out and rewritten as "tiled." (We were not sure at first if this correction was correct; the original sentence reads, "In order that corn may move to the lowlands, they must be either tilled, drained, or channelized," which seemed okay, but "tiled" is actually the germane agricultural term: "Tile drainage is a form of agricultural drainage system that removes excess sub-surface water from fields to allow sufficient air space within the soil." And while we are not sure whose hand this is, based on recent handwriting samples we've seen we'd wager it's wildlife biologist Joseph Hickey, Leopold's former graduate student who took over Leopold's department at the University of Wisconsin after his loss and was instrumental in the posthumous publication of A Sand Country Almanac.)
4) Leopold, Aldo, Lyle K. Sowls, and David L. Spencer. A Survey of Over-Populated Deer Ranges in the United States. Reprinted from The Journal of Wildlife Management, Vol. II, April 2 1947. An attempt to survey deer populations across the US to persuade that "the recent behavior of deer populations may convey the lesson that in managing overlarge herds, 'too little and too late' is the worst possible policy." While co-authored, one can hear Leopold's sturdy and identifiable voice loud and clear throughout. Large octavo or small quarto, stapled bound, 15 pages plus three blank pages to finish. Very good with a small tide mark along upper spine (an unfortunate spill, it was, that touched three out of four of these pamphlets).
No other copies of these pamphlets are available, and together they form a wonderful portrait of the various work and kinds of writing Leopold was pursing in the years leading up to his untimely death from a heart attack while fighting a fire at a neighbor's house in 1948. A great little collection. Good. Item #1122
Price: $2,750.00 save 5% $2,612.50