As one of the "collect with collectors" authors for this issue,
and an ABS
member, I feel I should respond a bit.
My article on collecting wild hackberrys and winged elms in
Tulsa , Ok. with
Pat Coen/Mikle Finnigan was from personal experience this
earely spring.
They found ( observed) these trees growing on a farmers cattle
range and
approached him about collecting. He was glad to get rid of them
and they
enjoy a great relationship with him which includes gifts of
tasty food
items as thanks. The holes are immediately filled upon
collecting. At the
speed which they can be collected they will be there
MMMAANNNYYY years just
collecting off one tiny area of this ranchers personal
property.
As for collecting with Jim Doyle, the collecting is done on HIS
OWN PROPERTY
at his nursery! from stock amongst overgrown old fields. I
guess I don't
need to defend that any more!
I was gonna leave my rant to speak for itself, but . . .
If you recall MY collecting article some months ago (Winter
2000), I am NOT against collecting trees from suitable
locations -- and hackberry and winged elm grow almost exclusively
in those locations, they are little more than weeds and reproduce
quickly and easily. As you note, they survive even after hefty
grazing by livestock.
Nor, Dale, did I even reference your article or Jim Doyle's. I
collect from MY property, too. I do NOT collect from
environmentall sensitive property -- as virtually all of the
rocky, western collecting sites with the aged, rugged, and
weatherbeaten trees are. So, I DO have a major problem with
people who collect in the arid west, where those cleaned out
areas are STILL cleaned out ater the pasage of more than 50
years, and still will be empty after another 100 have passed.
Desert lands are unforgiving.
I can't speak for the others collectors arrangements.
If this raffle works out well I thought of joining in the next
time with a
collecting trip locally for Taxus from one of my favorite
sites. I simply
pay the land owner to hand dig some of his trees.
As with most rants....this one wasn't thought out well. (
believe me....I
recognize one not thought out well! :)
I have been thinking about this RANT since the spring issue of
ABS and -- as you know, Dale, this is NOT a new position for me.
After my article on the Ethics of Collecting appeared in the ABS
Journal a few winters ago, I got e-mails from 4 western
collectors who said they collect when and where and what they
want to collect. Period -- that government land (includiing
protected land) was THEIR land and EFFF the regulations . . . .
I got other emails (still from the west) which would not want to
be repeated on a family Listserv.
The comment about "cleaned out areas" was a bit out of context
with the rest
of the statement. What "was" is past,..... what is "now" is
important.
Uh uh. The "now" is still now. In the last 25 years I have been
to two areas in the southern N.C. moutains (one a park, the other
Forest Service recreation area -- both protected) and have seen
recently emptied potholes in bare knobs (not even replaced
soil -- in once case it lay scattered around the empty holes, and
there was a crumpled beer can (Milwaukee's Best!) in one of
them). These were in places where _I_ would be terrified to
climb out to, tho I have such a terrible fear of heights, that
that's not saying much. These, coupled with the bragging taunts
that I received after my article, coupled with the near total
lack of any warnings about getting permission or permits in these
recent articles, and a series of collecting articles in another
of the bonsai magazines _several_ years ago where the authors
bragged about how many trees they'd collected on a
several-day-trip in the Rockies (I ranted about those, too), as
well as some complaints that I received from folks out west about
the raffle are sufficient indication to me that little has
changed. I saw old colleted sites in New Mexico in the late 90s.
These prompted my article about the little J. monosperma and my
fictional philosophical maunderings about whether to collect it
or not.
I'll close my rants on this subject with the plea (as I closed my
article): "Some say that every story should end with a moral.
This one ends with a plea for collectes of bonsai: That they
themeslves be moral. Collect, by all means, but before you
collect, think about it -- and if you can see any reason that a
given tree might better be left where it is, then leave it."
(ABS Journal, Winter 2000)
Nuff
Jim Lewis -
- Tallahassee, FL - "We smile at
the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to
reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who
is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure." -
William Channing
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