Hill Country Harvest

by Hal Borland

Invites the reader to spend a year in New England with an observer who makes the countryside stimulate the senses--not only through its sights and sounds, but through its aromas, its taste, its feel. Hal Borland's thousands of readers know that his "hill country" lies in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, in the foothills of the Berkshires.

Do you know how many adult grass spiders inhabit just one acre in the Berkshires? Do you know what the spider population would be if each of these adults should produce a modest progeny of 500 spiderlings? Do you know that sugar maples get so full of sun in October that even on the dark days they cast sunlight on objects beneath them?

Do you know how a dragonfly captures its prey, the midge? Do you know what there is in a kingfisher's eye that enables it to see under water? Have you seen what miracles take place in a tract of woodland when man stops tampering, spraying, and killing and nature is allowed to restore her own delicate balance?

To the insatiably curious and keenly appreciative Mr. Borland, such wonders are the stuff of which true adventures is made:
"There are so many things-- how a seed lives as long as it does, how half a dozen leaves and a big blossom can be packed into a hickory bud, how grass renews itself after it is mowed or eaten off, how a lizard grows a new tail. We don't know more than a minute fraction of the wonders that exist all around us every day. Some of them might be useful, if we could find the answers. A good deal more useful and important, it seems to me, than putting a man into orbit."

377 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Harold Glen Borland was a nature journalist. During World War II he wrote radio programs for the government and served as special magazine correspondent. He had written several documentary movies, two volumes of poetry, a volume of essays, has collaborated on a play, and has contributed many non-fiction articles, short stories and novelettes to leading magazines here and abroad.

Mr. Borland was graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism. He also attended the University of Colorado and received a Litt.D. from there in 1944.

Reviews

[Priscilla King · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like reading phenology blogs, this is not a really scientific one, but it's a collection of the best written posts from about ten years of phenology writing--newspaper columns, before blogs. No pictures, just lots of fun facts about the wildlife and weather of the Northeastern States. arranged in calendar order. For what it tries to be, this is a great book, Best of Breed, and it might be worth reprinting at least on an on-demand basis.

[Jeannie Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Country living in Connecticut. Birds, wildlife, trees, seasons. Collected from articles he wrote for newspaper. Mid century.