"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"riverman" wrote in message
...

...When I left in the late 70s, the entire Bradford/North
Bradford/Bradford Center region had only about 600 residents, and
falling, and the woods (my regular haunts) had many many overgrown
foundations and reclaimed homesteads. You'd know you were in one when you
were walking in the woods and you stumbled onto an apple tree grove,
found rhubarb and raspberries growing in patches, and a little poking
around inevitably turned up an old collapsed foundation, a well (don't
fall in), and some rusted farm machinery tangled in the grasses. Often,
50+ year old trees were growing from the foundation, and there was little
or no trace of the access road left. A little sleuthing would show how
the current woods road or skidder trail network used to be a main road
across the region, and how old anonymous sections of stone wall that were
deep in the forest were once roadside features, made by people long ago
whose memories had faded along with the landscape they created. More than
once, I'd find an old cemetary the did not appear on any maps, and was
barely recognizable.

I used to wonder what those folks would think if they saw the region
today. What was, to them, a small dirt access road out back became the
main paved highway through town. The old town center, with its church,
lumberyard, store and even railway station is now a lost ruin deep in the
woods, miles from any road or trail, with only 4-legged visitors.

Back in those same late 70s and into the early 80s I knew a number of
people who were involved in the nascent (and apparently stillborn) "back
to the earth" movement. They rented or, in a few cases, bought old farm
houses here in southeast Wisconsin and to one degree or another tried to
make at least a part of their living off the land. Virtually all of them
had a woodlot on or adjacent to their property, and I used to spend a lot
of time exploring in them. I found many of the same kinds of tantalizing
clues to former land use practices you described above and, more often
than not, was left wondering what they might mean. Imagine my delight to
find a book that was all about finding and interpreting those clues. I
hadn't thought about "Reading the Landscape of America" by May Theilgaard
Watts, for some time. Googling it just now, I guessed that it would be
long out of print and difficult to find. Not so. Looks like it was
reissued in 1999. Good thing. Good book:

http://home.att.net/~naturebooks/rtla1.html



Wow, this does indeed look like a good book. I think I'll track it down,
thanks. :-)

Meanwhile, a semi nonsequiter...more non- than semi-, is this book:
http://tinyurl.com/ofvtl

While it doesn't describe evolving fauna, it does occupy that same spot in
my memory as "Reading the Landscape" seems to for you. After reading it many
years ago, it now forms the baseline with which I build my familarity with
placenames across the US. I loved it then, and if you haven't read it yet, I
bet you'll enjoy it yourself.

--riverman