Floristic richness survives best where economic ‘progress’ has been slowest

Evidence

Thus it comes to pass that farm neighborhoods are good in proportion to the poverty of their floras. My own farm was selected for its lack of goodness and its lack of highway; indeed my whole neighborhood lies in a backwash of the River Progress. My road is the original wagon track of the pioneers, innocent of grades or gravel, brushings or bulldozers. My neighbors bring a sigh to the County Agent. Their fencerows go unshaven for years on end. Their marshes are neither dyked nor drained. As between going fishing and going forward, they are prone to prefer fishing. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 172

Categorization

• QUESTION: Leopold’s claim that backward farms harbor richer floras — quantifiable and testable against modern land-use data.
• XREF: connects to: Agricultural science ignores the landscape history it depends on — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 418; Progress fails when its standard bearers become part of nature; Severe disturbance plus low resource base can reduce species richness — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2259

Broader Connections

• Severe disturbance plus low resource base can reduce species richness #corroborates (0.80) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2259
• Progress fails when its standard bearers become part of nature #complicates (0.75)