BOOK REVIEW / Horse before the car: 'Great Possessions: An Amish Farmer's Journal' - David Kline: Sumach, 8.99
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.'THE AMISH are not necessarily against modern technology,' explains David Kline. 'We have simply chosen not to be controlled by it.' A member of the Amish community in Fredericksburg, Ohio, Kline practises 'diversified sustainable farming', small-scale agriculture based on 18th-century European methods and handed down across generations. He uses a four- or five- year crop rotation, no chemical fertilisers, no insecticides, no tractor. The pace of life is determined by the main item of farm equipment, the horse: 'because God didn't create the horse with headlights', the Amish farmer doesn't work nights.
Not least among the perks attending this way of life is a surprising amount of leisure time, most of which Kline spends watching and recording (with a pen) the local flora and fauna. These are his 'great possessions'. When not following animal tracks through the snow (which he calls 'reading the news'), Kline is tantalisingly brief on local history, beavers, sassafras and marsh life. He is also charmingly enthusiastic about the fruits of his own labour: 'For making your own syrup you'll need several good-sized maple trees, some sort of metal evaporator pan, spiles, a carpenter's brace and a half-inch wood bit.' Here's a copse I prepared earlier.
Kline's overriding passion, however, is for birds, and a good three-quarters of the 45 short pieces here deal lovingly with the hundreds of species seen in his neck of the woods. However delightful the names, it requires more than a passing interest in ornithology to be transfixed by the self-defence tactics of the bobolink, the feeding habits of the evening grosbeak, pine siskin and black-capped chickadee (not to be confused with the Carolina variety), and the breeding display of the Lapland longspur. Kline's expert exactitude tends to dull the exotic sheen.
The microscopic and often parochial character of the essays in Great Possessions reflects their original purpose as a regular column in the Amish
magazine Family Life. Their didactic
intent - anti-materialist and pro-
conservation - is weakened by repetition. This is a pity because, for those of us addicted to the buzz of the internal combustion engine and cathode-ray tube, Kline's simple, sane and richly contemplative life could serve as a persuasive example of what is rapidly becoming an imperative - that we be 'proper caretakers of creation'.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments