Hitchcock Center for the Environment

Archives: October 2009

Earth Matters : Future of the Valley’s agriculture

By Peter Westover

Suppose your family has owned a maple sugar business for five generations or run an apple orchard or struggled to keep a dairy going. Then imagine learning that, within less than a generation, the climate of western Massachusetts will become something like South Carolina’s today. Is that good or bad news for you?

Published on October 31, 2009.

Earth Matters : Visiting the Region’s Wonderful Waterfalls

By Elizabeth Farnsworth

When I tell people I live in Royalston, they tend to stare blankly. “Boylston?” they say. Or, “Where’s that, New Hampshire?” And I smile to myself that my town of 1,200 people in north-central Massachusetts is still one of the best- kept secrets in the Commonwealth. But among its many charms, Royalston has three treasures that shouldn’t be hush-hush: the Doane’s, Royalston and Spirit waterfalls.

Published on October 17, 2009.

Earth Matters : Book Offers a Field Guide to the Past

By Michael Dover

Once in a while, if we’re lucky, something comes along that expands our perception of the world around us. What was once “background” becomes discernible: we add depth and breadth to our experience of our surroundings. This happened to me when I read Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England (Countryman Press, Woodstock, Vt.) by Tom Wessels, and later went to a workshop that he led. Wessels, an ecologist at Antioch University New England in Keene, N.H., opened a new dimension—time—to my walks in the woods, helping me see the history of the land and its use by observing what’s there today.

Published on October 3, 2009.

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