McPhee tells of the famed oranges of Indian River, Florida. Florida was the only wilderness in the world that attracted middle-aged pioneers. After the Civil War more orange growing developed. Harriet Beecher Stowe bought some land at Mandarin. The orange fever of the 1880's attracted a high portion of Englshmen. The land was as fair and as fine as the promoters intimated. There had been a killer freeze in 1835. Then there was the Great Freeze of 1895 which happened in two stages, one in December, and the other in February. The freeze reduced the number of shipped oranges 97%.
In the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, the most populous state geographically, there are only fifteen people per square mile. The rivers of the Pine Barrens are cedar water. The people of the pines came to be known as pineys. There is a stigma to the term that has never been eliminated.
Thomas Hoving moved from Parks Commissioner to Director of the Metropolitan Musem of Art. Both Hoving and the writer attended Princeton. James Rorimer invited Hoving to work at the Metropolitan Museum when he was a graduate student in art history at Princeton. He became a curatorial assistant in the medieval department. Rorimer had developed The Cloisters. He was a medievalist.
Hoving traveled with Rorimer through Europe. He learned to trust his first impression in regard to the authenticity of a work of art. One has to be saturated with art to know art history. When Hoving was Parks Commissioner he initiated the Happenings. He sought to create vest pocket parks.
Having traced a superb cross the museum purchased to Bury St. Edmunds, Hoving was able to date the cross, 1181-1190. Collecting, of necessity, is done in secrecy so that the prices do not rise. Following Hoving, there is a piece on Arthur Ashe.
Next the Highlands are treated. Crofters are protected by the Crofters' Holding Act. English is spoken at school and Gaelic is spoken at home. There used to be sheep dog trials. There is a piper on the island of Colonsay, Andrew Oronsay. Pipers were important in the era of the clans. The Highlands sound romantic. The reality is that pastures provide rough-grazing, for example. The present laird feels his father was guilty of misplaced benevolence.
Wilderness preservation is a contentious matter. East of the hundreth meridian there is sufficient rainfall for farming. West of it there is not. David Brower is haunted by the lost worlds of Utah overrun by the existence of the dam at Glen Canyon. He was the first executive director of the Sierra Club.
One of the excerpts was written when Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia. A characteristic of John McPhee's writing is precision. This is a wonderful sampling of his work.