Bee Dawson quotes

“When possums were introduced in 1837 to start a fur industry, no one predicted that these Australian neighbours would naturalize with destructive enthusiasm, wreaking havoc on gardens and bush alike. Up to 20 million possums a year were killed during the height of the fur trade, but this barely checked their rapid expansion.”
-- Bee Dawson

#Garden Quotes #Years Quotes #Expansion Quotes

“My attempts at a lawn. Twice have we had the ground carefully dug up, and prepared; twice it has been sown with the best English seed... at considerable expense; ...and the end of all the trouble has been that a strong nor'wester has blown away both seed and soil, leaving only the hard, un-dug ground. ...there are the croquet things, lying idle in the verandah... they are likely to remain unused for ever.”
-- Bee Dawson

#Strong Quotes #Lying Quotes #Leaving Quotes

“For those dependent on their gardens for fresh food, it was often a case of feast or famine... (One settler wrote), "Strawberries were now so plentiful that... I made 287 lbs of jam..."”
-- Bee Dawson

#Garden Quotes #Jam Quotes #Made Quotes

“Even where the land was more receptive, settlers soon learned to take some precautions before planting their vegetables. Maize and pumpkin seeds were soaked in water for several days and then blackened with tar before planting - the most effective way to deter rats, mice and birds.”
-- Bee Dawson

#Vegetables Quotes #Land Quotes #Water Quotes

“Not all introductions worked well. Rabbits were an unmitigated environmental disaster. Unchecked by any natural predator, they bred at a staggering rate and chewed their way across vast areas of pastureland as well as any garden that came their way. Attempts to control them by introducing ferrets, weasels and stoats did much more harm than good. Although these predators probably killed a reasonable number of rabbits, they also devastated populations of kiwi and raided the nests of flighted birds.”
-- Bee Dawson

#Garden Quotes #Numbers Quotes #Bird Quotes

“May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.”

Source : Abraham Cowley, A. R. Waller (2014). “Poems”, p.88, Cambridge University Press

“All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”

“I see little hope for a nation that values the health of its livestock more than that of its people....Farmers are not criticized for routinely giving their (live)stock nutritional supplements....superior to any sold for humans...Millions of families could plant home gardens if they truly wanted health. Refined food are practically unknown in Russia. The life expectancy of the 40-year-old American is near the lowest in the world.”

“I always thought the name of Utah’s major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word “desert.” But no, Deseret is the “land of the honeybee,” according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.”

Source : A. J. Jacobs (2004). “The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

“In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.”

Source : "The First World War". Book by A. J. P. Taylor , p. 165, 1963.

“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”

“Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.”

“Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.”

“Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.”

“Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.”