4 
 
6' 
i, 
 
One Saturday night not long ago, two middle-aged farmers set 
the alarm clock for a dark hour of what proved to be a snowy, 
blowy Sunday. Milking over, they jumped into a pick-up and 
sped for the sand counties of central Wisconsin, a region pro- 
ductive of tax deeds, tamaracks, and wild hay. In the evening 
they returned with a truck full of young tamarack trees and a 
heart full of high adventure. The last tree was planted in 
the home marsh by lantern-light. There was still the milk- 
ing. 
In Wisconsin 'man bites dog' is stale news compared with 
'farmer plants tamarack.' Our farmers have been grubbing, 
burning, draining, and chopping tamarack since 1840. In the 
region where these farmers live the tree is exterminated. Why 
then should they want to replace it? Because after twenty years 
they hope to reintroduce sphagnum moss under the grove, and 
then lady's-slippers, pitcher plants, and the other nearly extinct 
wildflowers of the aboriginal Wisconsin bogs. 
No extension bureau had offered these farmers any prize for 
this utterly quixotic undertaking. Certainly no hope of gain 
motivated it. How then' can one interpret its meaning? I call 
 
I evolt-revolt against the tedium ot me merely economic