spring in our country essay

Essay on Spring Season

Introduction to Spring Season

“Blossoms dance, birds sing, and sunshine paints the world in spring’s embrace.”

Spring, a time of rebirth and renewal, emerges as the Earth tilts towards the sun, signaling longer days and warmer temperatures. This transition sparks a symphony of life, awakening dormant plants, animals, and microorganisms. Flowers bloom in vibrant colors, birds return with melodious songs, and the soil teems with microbial activity.

Beyond its biological significance, spring stirs deep emotions, evoking feelings of rejuvenation and hope after the cold winter. It reconnects us to nature and our cultural traditions, fostering a sense of gathering and celebration.

Watch our Demo Courses and Videos

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Mobile Apps, Web Development & many more.

In this Essay, we explore the essence of spring, from its celestial origins to its profound impact on the environment and human perception. Join us as we unravel the mysteries of spring’s awakening and delve into its timeless allure.

Weather and Climate

• Transition from Winter to Spring: As spring unfolds, temperature changes vary across nations, showcasing the diverse climatic experiences during this season. In northern regions like Canada and Scandinavia, temperatures gradually rise from winter to spring. The previously frozen landscapes thaw, allowing for the emergence of new life in a more moderate climate.
• Variability and Delightful Surprises: Spring temperatures exhibit a degree of variability in temperate regions like the United States and Europe. Warm spells interspersed with cooler days characterize this transitional period. The unpredictability of spring weather adds an element of excitement as people eagerly anticipate the arrival of milder days while still being prepared for occasional incredible snaps.
• Equatorial Regions: A Different Spring Experience: Temperate zones exhibit a more pronounced spring than equatorial nations near the equator. Instead of a drastic temperature shift, these regions experience more subtle changes throughout the year. Nevertheless, spring-like conditions often manifest in increased rainfall and a burst of blooming vegetation.
• Southern Hemisphere: A Reversed Seasonal Dynamic: Seasonal reversals occur in the spring in Southern Hemisphere nations like Australia and South Africa. As the Northern Hemisphere enjoys the blossoming of flowers and warmer days, the Southern Hemisphere emerges from its autumnal coolness. Spring in these regions signifies the start of a warmer season, promising outdoor activities and a resurgence of natural beauty.

The Significance of Spring

• Symbolism and Cultural Importance: Spring holds profound symbolism across cultures, representing renewal, rebirth, and transformation themes. In many religious and spiritual traditions, it symbolizes hope and the triumph of life over death. Festivals like Easter, Passover, and Holi celebrate the arrival of spring with traditions and ceremonies that reflect its symbolic significance.
• Impact on Nature and Environment: As temperatures rise and daylight hours increase, the arrival of spring prompts plants and animals to emerge from winter dormancy, signaling a crucial time for the natural world. Trees bud, flowers bloom, and wildlife becomes more active, contributing to the vibrant tapestry of life. Spring is also a critical period for agriculture , as farmers prepare their fields and sow seeds for the growing season.
• Ecological Balance and Biodiversity: Spring is vital in maintaining ecological balance and biodiversity. The regrowth of plants supports complex ecosystems by giving different species food and habitat. Blooming plants depend on pollinators like bees and butterflies to increase and complete their life cycles.
• Psychological and Emotional Well-being: Spring profoundly affects human well-being beyond its ecological significance. The longer days and increased sunlight boost mood and energy levels, alleviating the winter blues experienced by many. Warmer weather, chirping birds, and blossoming flowers inspire happiness and positivity, promoting socializing and outdoor activities.
• The Cycle of Life and Seasons: Spring is an integral part of the cyclical nature of life and seasons. It marks the transition from winter dormancy to summer vitality, symbolizing the cyclical growth, decay, and regeneration patterns that characterize the natural world. The changing seasons remind us of the impermanence of life and the constant cycle of renewal that sustains it.

The transition from Winter to Spring!

• The Thawing of Frost: As winter’s icy grip loosens, a gradual thawing of frost and ice marks the transition to spring. Frozen landscapes, once blanketed in snow, start to soften as temperatures rise. Rivers and streams, once frozen solid, begin to flow again, signaling the awakening of nature from its winter slumber.
• Lengthening Days and Increasing Sunlight: One of the most noticeable signs of the transition from winter to spring is the lengthening of days and increasing sunlight. Daylight hours steadily lengthen as the Earth’s axis tilts toward the sun, giving rise to increased warmth and energy. This shift in daylight patterns triggers biological processes in plants and animals, prompting them to emerge from dormancy and begin their spring activities.
• Budding of Trees and Blooming of Flowers: New growth is produced by trees and plants in response to rising temperatures and increasing daylight. Tree buds swell and burst open, revealing fresh green leaves. Flowers, dormant during the winter months, begin to bloom in a riot of colors, carpeting the landscape with beauty and fragrance. The emergence of blossoms heralds the arrival of spring in all its glory.
• Transition in Wildlife Behavior: The transition from winter to spring also changes wildlife behavior. Animals that hibernate or migrate during winter reappear as food sources become more abundant and temperatures milder. Birds return from their winter migrations, filling the air with their songs and building nests in preparation for breeding season.
• Cultural and Seasonal Celebrations: Various festivals and traditions worldwide celebrate the transition from winter to spring. These celebrations often symbolize renewal, rebirth, and the triumph of life over death. From the colorful festivities of Easter and Holi to the solemn observances of Passover, springtime rituals reflect this seasonal transition’s spiritual and cultural significance.

Cultural Festivals and Celebrations of Spring

Cherry Blossom Festivals in Japan

• Hanami, the traditional cherry blossom viewing, is a cultural celebration in Japan during spring. People congregate in parks to enjoy the beauty of the cherry blossom season.
• Place of Celebration: Tokyo, Kyoto, and other cities across Japan host spectacular cherry blossom festivals, attracting locals and tourists alike.

Holi in India

• The Festival of Colors, or Holi, is a colorful and exuberant event that heralds the entrance of spring. People play with colored powders, dance, and share festive meals.
• Place of Celebration: Mathura and Vrindavan, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, host grand Holi celebrations. Cities like Jaipur and Delhi also organize lively events.

Nowruz in Iran

• The Persian New Year, Nowruz, marks the coming of spring and the vernal equinox. Families gather for feasts, and symbolic items are displayed to represent renewal.
• Place of Celebration: Cities across Iran, Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz celebrate Nowruz with festivities.

Songkran in Thailand

• Songkran is the Thai New Year’s celebration, marked by water fights, parades, and religious ceremonies. Water represents cleansing and the removal of sins.
• Place of Celebration: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and other cities in Thailand come alive with water festivities during Songkran.

Hanami Parties in Washington, D.C.

• Inspired by Japan’s cherry blossom celebrations, Washington, D.C., hosts the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The festival includes parades, cultural events, and fireworks.
• Place of Celebration: The Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., becomes a focal point for hanami parties during the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Easter Celebrations in Various Christian Communities

• Easter, a significant Christian festival, celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It involves religious services, feasting, and various cultural traditions.
• Place of Celebration: Easter is observed globally, with notable celebrations in cities like Rome (Vatican City) and Jerusalem, as well as cities across Europe and the Americas.

Human Responses to Spring

Emotional Upliftment and Happiness

• Mood Elevation: Springtime often brings people joy and happiness as they emerge from the darkness and cold of winter into the warmth and brightness of spring. The increased daylight and exposure to sunshine cause the discharge of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is essential for mood regulation and ultimately enhances general well-being.
• Renewed Energy: With the arrival of spring, many people experience a surge in energy and motivation. The longer days and milder temperatures encourage outdoor activities and exercise, fostering a sense of vitality and rejuvenation after the lethargy of winter.

Connection with Nature

• Reconnecting with the Outdoors: People are likelier to spend time outside in the spring, engaging with nature and enjoying its beauty. Activities like hiking, picnicking, gardening, and simply taking leisurely walks become popular as people seek to immerse themselves in spring’s sights, sounds, and smells.
• Appreciation for Growth and Renewal: Spring’s arrival prompts reflection on the cyclical nature of life and the beauty of renewal. Witnessing the emergence of new growth in plants and trees, the blooming of flowers, and the return of wildlife fosters a sense of awe and appreciation for the cycles of nature.

Cultural and Social Celebrations

• Spring Festivals and Traditions: Various cultures across the world celebrate spring with a multitude of festivals and traditions, actively highlighting themes of renewal, rebirth, and community. Events like Easter, Passover, Holi, and Nowruz bring people together to mark the arrival of spring through religious ceremonies, cultural rituals, and festive gatherings.
• Community Engagement: Springtime often fosters community and social engagement as people celebrate seasonal festivals, participate in outdoor events, and enjoy shared activities like gardening or neighborhood clean-ups. These communal experiences strengthen social bonds and foster a sense of belonging.

Personal Growth and Reflection

• Symbolism of Renewal: Spring is a powerful symbol of personal renewal and growth, inspiring individuals to reflect on their lives and pursue new beginnings. It is a time for setting goals, making plans, and embarking on fresh endeavors, mirroring the growth and transformation seen in the natural world.
• Mindfulness and Gratitude: The beauty and vibrancy of spring encourage mindfulness and gratitude as people take time to appreciate the small joys and wonders of the season. Whether it’s the sight of blooming flowers, the sound of birdsong, or the feel of warm sunlight on the skin, spring invites people to be present and grateful for the moments of beauty in their lives.

Challenges and Changes in Spring

Environmental Challenges

• Climate Variability: Spring is a transition season characterized by unpredictable weather patterns and fluctuations in temperature. Climate change , which has raised the frequency and passion of extreme weather events like heat waves, late frosts, and heavy rains, which can disrupt agricultural cycles and ecosystems, has exacerbated these inequalities.
• Ecological Disruptions: Rapid changes in temperature and weather patterns can profoundly affect ecosystems, impacting the timing of plant growth, migration patterns of wildlife, and the availability of food and resources. These disruptions can lead to imbalances in ecological communities and threaten biodiversity.

Societal Changes

• Allergies and Health Concerns: Springtime increases pollen levels, triggering allergies and respiratory issues for many people. In addition to intensifying air pollution, rising temperatures and shifting weather patterns can cause respiratory ailments and other health issues.
• Economic Impacts: Spring weather can have significant financial impacts, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, tourism , and outdoor recreation. Unpredictable weather patterns and natural disasters like floods or storms can disrupt crop production, damage infrastructure, and affect tourism revenues.

Social and Cultural Shifts

• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): While many people experience a surge in energy and vitality during the spring, some people may have worsening symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). The transition from winter to spring can disrupt circadian rhythms and mood patterns, leading to feelings of anxiety, restlessness, or depression.
• Cultural and Lifestyle Changes: Springtime often changes cultural and lifestyle habits as people adapt to the warmer weather and longer days. Activities such as outdoor dining, sports, and recreational pursuits become more popular, while indoor activities may take a backseat.

Adaptation and Resilience

• Environmental Conservation: Addressing environmental challenges in spring requires a multifaceted approach that includes conservation efforts, sustainable land management practices, and mitigation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change. Protecting natural habitats, promoting biodiversity, and implementing green infrastructure can help build ecosystem resilience.
• Health and Wellness Strategies: To address health concerns associated with spring, individuals can take proactive measures such as managing allergies, staying hydrated, and practicing good respiratory hygiene. Public health initiatives to raise awareness about seasonal health risks and provide access to healthcare services can also help mitigate the impact of spring-related health issues.
• Community Preparedness: Building community resilience to springtime challenges requires collaboration and preparedness at the local level. This includes emergency planning, infrastructure improvements, and community education programs to raise awareness about weather-related hazards and promote adaptive strategies for coping with changing environmental conditions.

Outdoor Activities in Spring

• Hiking and Nature Walks: Spring is the perfect time to investigate the great outdoors on foot. Hiking trails come alive with blooming wildflowers and lush greenery, offering scenic vistas and opportunities to connect with nature.
• Picnics in the Park: With milder temperatures and longer daylight hours, spring beckons for leisurely picnics in the park. Pack a basket with your favorite snacks and enjoy an al fresco dinner surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature.
• Cycling Adventures: Dust off your bike and hit the trails or scenic routes for an exhilarating cycling adventure. Spring’s mild weather provides ideal conditions for exploring new paths and enjoying the freedom of two wheels.
• Gardening and Planting: Spring is the season of growth, making it the perfect time to indulge your green thumb. Whether you have a backyard garden or a few pots on your balcony, planting flowers, herbs, or vegetables can be a rewarding outdoor activity.
• Birdwatching: As migratory birds return and local species become more active, spring offers excellent opportunities for birdwatching. Grab a pair of binoculars and head to a nearby park or wildlife reserve to observe a variety of feathered companions in their natural habitat.
• Outdoor Yoga and Meditation: Take your yoga practice outdoors and embrace the rejuvenating energy of spring. Set up your mat in a peaceful garden, park, or beach and engage in a mindful yoga session or meditation practice surrounded by nature’s beauty.
• Fishing and Boating: Spring signals the start of fishing season in many regions, as lakes and rivers thaw and fish become more active. Whether you prefer casting a line from shore or setting sail on a boat, spring offers plenty of opportunities for fishing and boating enthusiasts.
• Photography Expeditions: Spring’s vibrant colors and blooming landscapes inspire photographers. Grab your camera and venture on a photography expedition to capture the beauty of springtime scenes, from cherry blossoms in full bloom to cascading waterfalls fed by melting snow.

Spring’s enchanting arrival rejuvenates the world with vibrant colors, fragrant blooms, and a sense of renewal. From cultural celebrations to outdoor adventures, the season’s magic captivates hearts globally. As we bask in spring’s warmth, let us cherish the beauty it bestows, fostering hope and growth for the future.

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Web Development & many more.

Forgot Password?

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to our Privacy Policy

Explore 1000+ varieties of Mock tests View more

Submit Next Question

Early-Bird Offer: ENROLL NOW

Talk to our experts

1800-120-456-456

• Spring Season Essay

What Does a Spring Refers to?

Spring refers to the period between winter and summer. Winter leaves the scene at the commencement of spring. Likewise, the conclusion of spring signals the beginning of summer. Additionally, Autumn season occurs in the Southern Hemisphere when there is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Day and night are likely the same lengths during the Spring Season. Certainly, Spring brings happiness and joy to everyone. Besides that, Spring celebrations occur in many cultures, usually in conjunction with rites and festivals.

Overview of the Spring Season

The season of spring also marks the emergence of flowers and the breeding of animals. The chirping of the birds in the early mornings and the buzzing of the bees in the night become very soothing and calm after a long winter's silence. The beauty of watching a butterfly hop from a flower to another in the gardens is wonderful. During this time, the skies appear clear and the wind is cool and refreshing, creating a peaceful atmosphere everywhere. A variety of flowers bloom in the spring season. The most important flowers in this season are roses, tulips, daisies, lilies, and hyacinths. This is also a season when we get an abundance of fruits and vegetables. We are able to enjoy them in the freshest way. Branches of mango trees blossom with mango blossoms. All living things appear lively, including humans. 

The beauty of this season brings happiness and joy all around and makes our minds very creative and gives energy to the body to start work full of confidence. People go out on short trips or long vacations during this season. Children enjoy picnics and play around. This season is perfect for hiking and nature walks. 

Early in the spring, the Earth's axis becomes tilted as a result of its tilt with respect to the Sun. Likewise, the length of daylight in particular hemispheres increases. Additionally, a warm climate results in the advent of new plants in the hemisphere. Spring is therefore a warm season. Melting snow is a second important occurrence in the spring. There are fewer severe frosts as well. 

Plants bloom in the spring as the weather warms. It can be the first month of spring in certain parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It is also the first month of flowering in temperate regions. Also, in subarctic regions, Spring begins in May.

Certainly, spring is the result of warm weather. Also, the planet's axis changes in relation to the Sun as a result of this warming. During the Spring, there can be unstable weather conditions. A cold front invades the Arctic from the poles, while a warm front descends from lower latitudes. Spring is frequently associated with flooding in the mountains. This is due to warm rains accelerating snowmelt.

The term 'season creep' has become a buzzword in recent years. In particular, spring signs are occurring earlier than expected due to the creep of the season. Across the globe, this trend has been gaining traction.

A number of health benefits are associated with the spring season. A psychological boost is among the benefits the spring season provides. Depression and anxiety are common problems suffered by people during the winter season. With Spring, those feelings are replaced with a new sense of hope and optimism. Winter has given people the opportunity to emerge from hibernation. The Spring season is most notable for its rejuvenating and joyful nature.

The Winter season is a time when many people consume comforting foods. For many people, this leads to increased weight gain. The spring season is a good time to eat healthy foods. A variety of fresh local foods will be available while the spring season lasts. The Spring season is also a time when many vitamin-rich vegetables reach peak ripeness. Peas, asparagus, kale, and brussels sprouts are among them.

Seasonal health is at its peak during spring. A healthy environment is certainly encouraged by the season. A long winter season is over and it's time to let the sun in. During the Spring season, the amount of fresh oxygen available to humans is exceptionally high. Moreover, spring provides a lot of sunshine for healthy skin. Sunlight provides Vitamin D, which is essential for healthy skin.

During springtime, you are more motivated to work out. Winter is a time when you are less likely to move around. People are more likely to move around when spring comes. It's especially nice to exercise when it's warm outside. This contributes to individuals becoming more fit through spring.

Importance of Spring Season

It is the most important season for the farmers. The farmers look happy because after a long wait and months of a long labour, the crops get ready to be harvested. Rabi crops are the agricultural crops that were sown in winter and harvested in spring. Spring brings joy and happiness to everyone’s heart, as it is the season of festivals and weddings. The festivals are celebrated to mark the arrival of spring with colours. Holi, the festival of colours, is celebrated in this season. It marks the beginning of spring. Holi symbolises the triumph of good over evil. Harvesting festivals like Bihu, Baisakhi, Pongal, etc., are celebrated during this time. Other important festivals like Hanuman Jayanti, Ram Navami, Good Friday, and Easter are also celebrated in this season. 

As a whole, spring is the most beautiful season everywhere. As a result, spring is filled with joy and happiness. The season is associated with love, hope, youth, and growth. It is a season for a variety of activities. This time of the year has the most pleasant weather. The king of all seasons, this time of year includes so many activities. 

Spring is the best season of the year, no matter where you are. This season brings with it happiness and joy. The season of spring represents youth, love, and hope. It is the perfect season for many activities. The climate is most pleasant during this time. It is indeed known as the king of seasons.

FAQs on Spring Season Essay

1. When does spring arrive every year?

The spring season falls between winter and summer. It precedes the end of harsh winter and heralds the beginning of summer. Even though the season is short lived, it is known as the king of all seasons. It is a time for rebirth and renewal of the natural world. It awakens nature from its slumber and causes it to become active again, bringing new life to the planet.

2. What are the festivals in the spring season?

During the spring season, there are a number of festivals to celebrate.

• Good Friday
• Hanuman Jayanti.

3. What does the spring season represent?

The spring season represents life, love, hope, youth, and growth. It is a season for a variety of activities. This time of the year has the most pleasant weather. The king of all seasons, this time of year includes so many activities.

4. What are some of the vitamin-rich vegetables available during the Spring season?

This is the time of the year when many vitamin-rich vegetables are at their peak. Asparagus, kale, and peas are some of the most noteworthy vegetables on this list.

5. Why is spring important for the farmers?

Spring is important for the farmers because, after a long wait and months of a long labour, the crops get ready to be harvested. Rabi crops are the agricultural crops that were sown in winter and harvested in spring.

Essay on Spring 1000+ words

Spring, often referred to as the “season of renewal,” is a time when the world awakens from its winter slumber. It brings with it a burst of vibrant colors, warmer temperatures, and a sense of joy that touches our hearts. In this essay, we will explore the many wonders of spring, its importance in our lives, and the reasons why it is a beloved season by people around the world.

The Arrival of Spring

Spring typically begins in March in the Northern Hemisphere and September in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a transitional period between winter and summer when nature undergoes a remarkable transformation.

Nature’s Reawakening

One of the most enchanting aspects of spring is the way nature comes back to life. Trees that appeared bare during winter suddenly sprouted new leaves, and colorful flowers bloomed, carpeting the landscape. The greenery and blossoms are a sight to behold, signaling the renewal of life.

Warmer Weather

After the chilly winter months, spring brings milder temperatures. The sun shines more brightly, and the air becomes comfortably warm, making it a perfect time for outdoor activities.

The Joy of Springtime

Spring has a unique ability to uplift our spirits. The longer daylight hours and the cheerful surroundings bring a sense of happiness and optimism. This phenomenon is often referred to as “spring fever,” a feeling of rejuvenation and enthusiasm.

Season of Renewal

Farmers eagerly await spring, as it marks the beginning of the planting season. The thawing of the soil allows them to sow crops, ensuring a bountiful harvest in the months ahead. This agricultural significance is vital for food production.

Blossoming Beauty

One of the most iconic signs of spring is the blooming of flowers. From cherry blossoms in Japan to tulips in the Netherlands, each region has its own floral display. These blooms not only enchant our senses but also support pollinators like bees and butterflies.

Wildlife Activity

Spring is a busy time for wildlife as well. Animals that hibernate during the winter emerge from their burrows, birds return from migration, and the forests come alive with the sounds of chirping and singing.

Spring Cleaning

Spring has inspired the tradition of “spring cleaning” in many cultures. It’s a time when people declutter their homes, freshen up their surroundings, and start anew. This practice helps maintain a clean and organized living space.

Outdoor Recreation

The pleasant weather of spring encourages people to spend more time outdoors. Activities like hiking, picnicking, cycling, and gardening become popular. These pursuits promote physical activity and a connection with nature.

Cultural Celebrations

Spring is celebrated in various cultures around the world with festivals and traditions. For example, the Indian festival of Holi is known for its vibrant colors and joyous spirit. In the United States, spring is marked by Easter, a holiday symbolizing rebirth and renewal.

Conclusion of Essay on Spring

In conclusion, spring is a season that fills our hearts with joy and wonder. Its arrival heralds the renewal of nature, the blossoming of beauty, and a sense of optimism that permeates our lives. Whether through its impact on agriculture, wildlife, or our own well-being, spring plays a vital role in the world’s rhythms.

As we embrace the beauty and benefits of spring, let us not only enjoy its wonders but also remember our responsibility to protect the environment. Preserving the natural world ensures that future generations can continue to experience the magic of this remarkable season. Spring is a gift that reminds us of the beauty of life’s constant cycles and the promise of brighter days ahead.

Also Check: List of 500+ Topics for Writing Essay

• Skip to main content
• Skip to secondary menu
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

A Plus Topper

Improve your Grades

Essay on Spring Season | Spring Season Essay for Children and Students

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Essay on Spring Season: Essay on Spring Season is an important topic from an academic perspective. Moreover, writing an essay on the spring season will help students understand the season and its wide implications better. However, writing the actual essay is where most students fall short.

You can also find more  Essay Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Spring Season Essay Presentation in English for Students and Kids

Sometimes, they may miss out on certain vital aspects such as a presentation or content delivery. With the following guidelines, however, students will be able to write a better essay and secure more marks for the same. It will also help students improve their general writing skills which will certainly prove useful for future exams. Read on to find more about Essay on Spring Season in english for Class 3, Class 5, Class 10.

Essay on Spring Season Writing Tips & Tricks

• Always start the essay with an introductory paragraph.
• The introductory paragraph must include any relevant, background information of the essay.
• Use a formal style of writing for academic essays
• Avoid jargons, unless required exclusively in the essay
• Present content in digestible chunks or paragraphs
• Use subheadings to organize content
• Use bulleted points wherever necessary
• Try to incorporate specifics such as names, dates and places. Doing so will provide more clarity on the topics
• Use a concluding paragraph, summarising important points
• Before submission, read through the essay once to eliminate spelling or grammatical errors

Descriptive Essay on Spring Season 200 Words

Paragraph on Spring Season Introduction in English: Spring is one of the four seasons where the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, especially in the temperate zone. This is due to the fact that the earth tilts relative to its orbital plane around the sun. It is also the season where animals breed and flowers bloom. Spring is also the period where many educational institutions and universities have a vacation around the world. The Season I Like Most Spring Essay.

Spring Season – Definitions and Notions

One of the notions held by most people about spring is that it is the season of “rebirth” and “rejuvenation”. Tropical and subtropical regions have a better climate compared to other seasons. From a meteorological perspective, spring can be defined as the season between summer and winter. In places such as the United States and the United Kingdom, spring season begins from March and lasts until May. In other places such as Australia and New Zealand, spring season begins from September and ends in November. Meanwhile, Ireland’s spring season begins in February and lasts until the end of April. The months of March and April and considered as spring season in India.

Ecological Implications of Spring

From an ecological perspective, the spring season is not always determined by prefixed calendar dates. Instead, spring is marked by various biological indicators such as blooming flowers and breeding activities of animals. Even the soil has a characteristic smell, and it becomes warm enough for microorganisms in the soil to flourish. Ecologists have even divided the year into six seasons, with spring season being classified into “prevernal spring” (early spring) and “vernal spring”.

To sum up, the spring season is the season where flowers bloom and animals breed, it is also the season where days get longer and the weather gets warmer compared to other seasons.

Essay about Spring Season 350 Words

Spring Season Essay Introduction:  Traditionally, spring is known as the season of rebirth, rejuvenation and new beginnings. This is due to the fact that the flowers bloom and animals breed during this season. The days also get longer and warmer compared to the other seasons. Farmers and agriculturalists sow their seeds as the temperatures become favorable for plant growth. However, the timing of spring varies depending on the location.

Spring Season Essay Writing – How is Spring Defined?

Besides the above-stated notions, most people associate spring with the astronomical definition of the word. It is defined as the period between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It is also defined by the angle of the earth’s tilt towards the sun. Equinoxes are days of special significance as the days and nights are equal. Moreover, the earth experiences two equinoxes – one in spring and the other one in fall. The one that occurs in the spring is called the vernal equinox and it occurs by March 20th in the Northern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere experiences the other equinox by September 22nd.

During summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted at its greatest angle towards the sun – which occurs on June 21 every year. The same phenomenon happens in the Southern Hemisphere with the South Pole on December 21st.

Season of Awakening

Temperatures become warmer in the hemisphere that is tilted towards the sun. This means the ground, which previously would have been frozen over the winter months, would have started to thaw or become soft, allowing plants to grow. Spring is also characterized by the increase in rainfall, which helps plants to take root in the ground.

Animals that spent the winter hibernating emerge from their dens while those that migrated to warmer regions return. Animals that had a winter coat will shed them or change colour to blend in with the change in the landscape. Breeding activities also increase during this time, with many animals giving birth.

Sometimes, spring is also associated with floods, as the melting snow may overwhelm ponds and rivers. Tropical storms also occur during this season as the cold air from the far north or south combines with the warm air from the equator.

To sum up, the spring season is the season where the cold climate transitions to a warmer one. Flowers bloom and animals breed, it is also the season where days get longer and the weather gets warmer compared to other seasons. We soonly Update Essay on Spring Season in Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi.

FAQ’s On Spring Season

Question 1. When is spring season beginning in the northern hemisphere?

Answer: Spring begins in the northern hemisphere on March 1st.

Question 2. When is spring season beginning in the southern hemisphere?

Answer: Spring begins in the southern hemisphere on September 1st.

• Picture Dictionary
• English Speech
• English Slogans
• English Letter Writing
• English Essay Writing
• English Textbook Answers
• Types of Certificates
• ICSE Solutions
• Selina ICSE Solutions
• ML Aggarwal Solutions
• HSSLive Plus One
• HSSLive Plus Two
• Kerala SSLC
• Distance Education

English Compositions

Short Essay on Spring Season [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In this session, you will learn how to write short essays about Spring Season . Here, I am going to write three sets of essays on the same topic within different word limits. So, let’s get started. 

Table of Contents

Short essay on spring season in 100 words, short essay on spring season in 200 words, short essay on spring season in 400 words.

The seasonal cycle of our earth is divided into four major seasons: summer, winter, spring, and autumn. Spring is a vital and one of the most prominent seasons globally. The season indicates fertility, new life, growth, and the birth cycle. The world celebrates the newly arrived fruits, vegetables, and animals through spring.

This season arrives after winter and continues till summer. So with spring,  several festivals are celebrated because the harsh winter is no more. Spring festivals are common in India as Holi and Vasant Panchami. Nature is filled with colours and fragrances. In European countries, spring festivals include lights, candles, cherry blossoms, and a great feast. Spring is the time in which the world rejoices in pleasure. 

If the seasons and the cycle of seasons are well noticed in a year, then we observe that the year begins with winter in January and slowly by the end of February, till March, a beautiful season arrives. It is the spring season. From a geographical point of view, the earth during the time starts its revolution towards the northern hemisphere. So the northern hemisphere leans toward the sun and the days start getting warmer and longer. It is during this time that spring is celebrated in nature. 

After the end of the cold winter season, nature takes birth through spring. New flowers and leaves fill the trees. Birds and animals start making their own house and come out of their hibernation. Once again life starts with the new sounds of the little birds and the smell and colours of new fruits and flowers. The world celebrates spring like a festival.

In India it is observed through Holi and Vasant Panchami; in European and Asian countries, cherry blossoms are a famous ingredient of the spring festival. They organize huge feasts and gatherings along with lights and other decorations. However seasonal changes cause several diseases during this time. Spring is also associated with diseases like pox and cough and cold. So if these medical issues can be removed, then spring is a moment of happiness and joy.

Nature contains her own method of controlling the life cycle on earth. Nature as the feminine aspect of the whole universe is responsible for controlling all forms of birth processes, be it humans, flora, animals, or even the seasons. The seasonal cycle of the earth can be majorly divided into four parts. The global cycle of seasons includes winter, summer, spring, and autumn. Spring, in fact, is that season of birth and growth. Nature creates its rhythm of life processes through spring.

The winter season is extremely harsh and cold. It can never support life. Throughout the world in several places, terrific snowfall, landslides, and drizzles cause enormous damage to life and mankind. The animal kingdom almost goes into hibernation. No bird chirps and even the smallest insect leaves the place. So when spring arrives every object of the world receives freedom from the terrible cold of the winter. 

Spring denotes the movement of the Northern hemisphere of the earth towards the sun. As a result, the northern hemisphere starts receiving sunlight and gets warmer. It is neither too hot nor too cold. The days are longer now. So the birds and animals can now create their nests and homes and gather food. Human beings enjoy the most during spring. They get to enjoy the flowers and the fruits of the trees. They rejoice by celebrating festivals. Spring festivals mark the beginning of life on earth and are one of the most beautiful spectacles in the world.

The festival of colours, Holi, and also Vasant Panchami are prominent in India. The world picture is again more beautiful. Lights, colours, and flowers are extremely important in several European and Asian spring festivals. Different countries become tourist spots during the spring season mainly because of the beautiful weather conditions and flowers like cherry blossoms. Mainly due to the beautiful weather many people also go for vacations. 

But every season has its own disadvantages as well. While the season is holistic, it also brings mankind several diseases. Pox, cough and cold, fever, and several gastrointestinal problems occur during this time. It happens because the season lies between summer and winter and so this seasonal transition creates different ailments in mankind. 

Whatever it is, we cannot stop enjoying such a beautiful season. It comes for a very short period of time and leaves quickly. Hence with due protection, we can thoroughly enjoy the bliss of spring and experience life growing into flora and fauna. Spring is a time to be celebrated and not denied away.

I have tried to follow a very simplistic approach throughout the lesson for a better understanding of all kinds of students. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. Keep browsing our website to read more such sessions on various topics related to English comprehension. 

Join us on Telegram to get all the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Spring — The Revival of Nature: Exploring the Wonders of Spring

The Revival of Nature: Exploring The Wonders of Spring

• Categories: Spring

About this sample

Words: 846 |

Published: Dec 28, 2023

Words: 846 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

The significance of spring, the biological processes of spring, cultural and environmental impacts, the human connection to spring.

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

• Expert in: Environment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1192 words

2 pages / 770 words

2 pages / 863 words

1 pages / 601 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Spring

1. To show how the time of vertical oscillation depends on the load 2. To determine the spring constant 3. To determine the effective mass of the spring Let the force constant of the spring, i.e. the force to [...]

Henrik Ibsen's assertion, "Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing," resonates profoundly in the realm of historical analysis, particularly when exploring the reception of artistic masterpieces like Igor Stravinsky's [...]

Many places on this planet keep fascinating many of us with their beauty and grand power that nature has offered them. And one such beauty that people visit time and time again to view, is the Niagara Falls, situated in the [...]

Acid rain, a term denoting precipitation with acidic properties, primarily characterized by the presence of nitric and sulfuric acids, is a pervasive environmental concern that demands comprehensive analysis. This essay seeks to [...]

Analysis of The Storm In McKnight Malmars frightening story The Storm she weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the horrific fear that engulfs Janet Willsom. The storm is a combination of mother nature, Janets [...]

To me, the world’s greatest satisfaction in the world is reaching down and lifting someone up. You never know how big of an impact you are making in someone’s life. I believe in helping others in times of need. If you do not [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Skip to main content

India’s Largest Career Transformation Portal

Essay on Spring Season for Students in English | 500+ Words Essay

December 20, 2020 by Sandeep

Essay on Spring Season: The end of the long winter period marks the beginning of spring season. The months of February, March and early days of April are usually considered part of the spring season. Hot summers during day time and light spells of chill weather at night are usually experienced during the season. The season hallmarks new beginnings, transformation and celebration of many festivals. Trees and plants look colourful and lovely with flowers and green leaves.

Essay on Spring Season 500 Words in English

Below we have provided Spring Season Essay in English, written in easy and simple words for class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 school students.

Spring season comes after winter and is the most pleasant season of the year. In the words of George Herbert-sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, a box where sweets compacted lie. Animals awaken, and nature seems to take a new course of change and growth. It varies according to different locations on the Earth and marks the new beginnings and arrival of joy. It is one of my favourite seasons.

Festivals celebrated during Spring Season

As winter bids adieu, springs sets in with blooming colours of joy and happiness. So, people in India prepare for spring festivals. Spring is the symbol of brightness, greenery, warm and vibrant atmosphere. Every region in India has a different way of celebrating spring. According to Robin, Williams-Spring is nature’s way of saying, let’s a party!

Assam: It is a state rich in agriculture and has three harvest festivals which are Rongali Bihu, Kongali Bihu, and Bhogali Bihu. Out of these Rongali Bihu is celebrated during spring as is considered as the Assamese New Year. It is celebrated in the middle of April every year and named so because it brings happiness to people. It involves farming and cultivation, so farmers decorate their cattle, bathe them with a paste of black gram and turmeric and with some garlands.

Odisha: A state famous for its tribal cultures, temples and peace-loving and communal harmony celebrates spring by Ratha Yatra. It is popularly known as chariot festival conducted in the spiritual city of Odisha called Puri. People believe that Lord Vishnu resides in the temple and visits his devotees. It is a massive festival as it carried out for a week as they travel around the city with deities of Gods present in the chariots. This festival provides a unique experience as people around the world visits Puri, especially for the festival.

Punjab: A land famously referred to as “The Land of five rivers” and known for its regional diversities. Baisakhi is celebrated to mark the onset of spring and harvest season of Punjab, they come together and enjoy folk music, bhangra dance, fairs and feasts. People anxiously wait for this season and enjoy it with full gusto and enthusiasm. The Golden temple is decorated with flowers and lights. The entire atmosphere is thronged with ecstasy and happiness.

Kerala: Kerala is a divine state known for surreal beauty and greenery. It is named as God’s own country for its spectacular sights and serene nature. The Thrissur Pooram is a grand festival celebrated through the display of vibrant elephants, dazzling parasols and music. Also, ten temples participate together to make it a magnificent one.

Jharkhand: It is known for its vast forest resources and is a leading producer of mineral wealth. They celebrate Sarhul festival with Hadia; a local beer brewed with traditional cuisines. It is made up of rice, water, and some tree leaves. It marks the beginning of the New Year, where people worship trees followed by singing and dancing. After this, they start sowing seeds and plantations.

Buddha Jayanti: It is celebrated to commemorate the birthday of Lord Buddha. It is a sacred and global festival celebrated around the world. India, Tibet, Nepal, China, and Cambodia are the countries where it is a huge affair. This festival is considered to be pious and pure. In Varanasi, prayer meetings, meditation sessions, scripture reading and feasts are part of the festival. In Sarnath, there is a display of the relics of Buddha in public. Moreover, it is celebrated in Ladakh, Darjeeling, Kurseong, and Arunachal Pradesh.

Carnival and Easter: Christians practise carnival all around the world. Easter is the significant religious feast in the Christian year. Children go for Easter egg hunt and celebrate it with friends and family over a grand dinner. Also, May Day known as International Workers Day is celebrated in the spring season.

Significance of Spring Season

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), spring occurs when the Earth’s axis is pointed towards or away from the Sun. Equinoxes are special days during the year when day and night are equal. There are two equinoxes, one in the spring and one in the fall. The spring one falls around March 20. Temperatures get warm gradually. The lands which are covered with snow starts melting slowly. Animals that spent time in hibernation are awakened and come out of their dens. Birds chirp a lot signifying the beginning of spring. Different varieties of bird species are spotted, making the environment colourful.

Spring also brings rainfall that helps to water the seedlings, which are sown by farmers and gardeners. These infant seeds start taking roots in the ground. It is the season that is a harbinger of positivity and vital energy. Most noteworthy, it is a period where people are invigorated with health and happiness. The days are longer than the nights, which prove to be a significant booster as people enjoy extra hours of Sun. According to the researchers, spending time outside brings out the creativity and broadened outlook among people. There is an abundance of fresh produce of vegetables and fruits.

• Pollution Essay
• Water Pollution
• Essay On My Father
• Essay On My Favourite Teacher
• Essay On Friendship
• Essay On Mahatma Gandhi
• Discipline Essay
• Christmas Essay
• Education Essay
• Mother Essay
• Clean India Green India Essay
• Coronavirus Essay
• Essay on Water
• Essay on My Family
• Essay on Independence Day
• Child Labour Essay
• Noise Pollution Essay
• Morning Walk Essay
• Technology Essay
• Corruption Essay
• Essay On Republic Day
• Essay on Hobby
• Time Management Essay
• Children's Day Essay
• Digital India Essay
• ESSAY ON TEACHER
• My Aim In Life Essay
• Rainy Day Essay
• Unsung Heroes of Freedom Struggle Essay
• Online Classes Essay
• Water Conservation Essay
• Essay On Covid19
• My Favourite Game Essay
• Natural Disasters Essay
• Online Education Essay
• Dowry System Essay
• My Best Friend Essay
• My School Essay
• Essay On School
• Essay on Freedom Fighters
• Essay on Peacock
• Essay on Sports
• Forest Essay
• Essay on Swami Vivekananda
• Essay on Yoga
• Honesty is the Best Policy Essay
• Indian Culture Essay
• Good Manners Essay
• Trees are Our Best Friend Essay
• An Ideal Teacher Essay
• Unemployment Essay
• Essay on Cricket
• Essay on Flood
• Gender Discrimination Essay
• Essay on Picnic
• Essay on Computer
• Postman Essay
• Summer Vacation Essay
• Globalization Essay
• My Dreams Essay
• My House Essay
• Essay on Dog
• Save Environment Essay
• Sports and Games Essay
• Importance of Sports Essay
• India of My Dreams Essay
• Essay on India
• Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Essay
• National Integration Essay
• Essay Writing Format
• Mother's Day Essay
• Road Safety Essay
• Bhagat Singh Essay
• Rabindranath Tagore Essay
• My Ambition in Life Essay
• My Country India Essay
• Poverty Essay
• Poverty In India Essay
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Essay
• Save Trees Essay
• Essay on My Favorite Game Badminton
• Essay on Football
• My Favourite Sport Essay
• My Class Teacher Essay
• My Home Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Durga Pooja
• My Pet Dog Essay
• Science and Technology Essay
• TELEVISION Essay
• Patriotism Essay
• Human Rights-Essay
• Importance of Newspaper Essay
• Sustainable Development
• Essay on Earth
• Essay on Population
• Essay on Agriculture
• Terrorism in India Essay
• Online Learning Essay
• Ganesh Chaturthi Essay
• Essay on Indian Army
• Essay on Mango
• Janmashtmi Essay
• Kalpana Chawla Essay
• Gandhi Jayanti Essay
• Gender Equality Essay
• Save Earth Essay
• School Life Essay
• Health and Fitness Essay
• Importance of Reading Essay
• Leadership Essay
• Essay on Narendra Modi
• Essay on Parents
• New Year Essay
• Online Shopping Essay
• Soil Pollution Essay
• Stress and Its Effects on Youth Essay
• Freedom Essay
• My City Essay
• My Favourite Food Essay
• Student Life Essay
• Farmer Essay
• Raksha Bandhan Essay
• Happiness Essay
• Health and Hygiene Essay
• My Best Teacher Essay
• Road Accident Essay
• Single Use Plastic Essay
• Father of English Essay
• Indian Freedom Struggle Essay
• Self-reliance with Integrity Essay
• Spring Season Essay
• Essay On Grandparents
• My First Day At School Essay
• My Neighbour Essay
• My Favourite Game Cricket Essay
• My Favourite Subject Essay
• My Favourite Place Essay
• My Role Model Essay
• Population Explosion Essay
• Essay On My Favourite Festival
• Essay On Science
• Knowledge is Power Essay
• Kindness Essay
• Punctuality Essay
• Essay on Punjab
• Junk Food Essay
• Lal Bahadur Shastri Essay
• Essay Writing Competitions
• Essay Writing for UPSC
• Essay on Election
• UPSC Essay Paper
• Essay on Lion
• A Visit to a Zoo Essay
• My Favourite Season
• Artificial Intelligence Essay
• Makar Sankranti Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Essay on National Festivals
• Value of Games and Sports Essay
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Social media Essay
• Clean India Essay
• Action Speaks Louder Than Words Essay
• Essay on Women's Day
• Girls Education Essay
• Essay on Drug Addiction
• Advantages And Disadvantages of Internet Essay
• Essay on Environment Day
• Health Essay
• Mother Teresa Essay
• My Grandmother Essay
• Essay On Elephant
• Essay For UPSC
• SSC MTS Exam Short Essay

Latest Courses

We provides tutorials and interview questions of all technology like java tutorial, android, java frameworks

Contact info

G-13, 2nd Floor, Sec-3, Noida, UP, 201301, India

[email protected] .

Interview Questions

Online compiler.

Essay Service Examples Environment Spring

Essay on Spring Season

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Our writers will provide you with an essay sample written from scratch: any topic, any deadline, any instructions.

Cite this paper

Related essay topics.

Get your paper done in as fast as 3 hours, 24/7.

Related articles

Most popular essays

The Spring Festival is a well known event in the Chinese culture through which its citizens get...

Though it lives for the short duration, it bewitches people in such a way that they sing songs in...

• Perspective

Hello Spring, is that really you? Every morning I greet the most awaited season of renewal,...

Spring has arrived! The bottom is thawing and it’s a good time to begin excited about recent,...

The rolling hills during spring are a sight to live for. There is no parallel. Countless shades of...

Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem “Spring and Fall” is centered around one’s perception of death and...

In the words of the renowned folklorist Henry Glassie, “All art is an individual’s expression of...

It is no secret that of all four seasons, spring is a favorite for most. Find it inspirational as...

• Water Pollution

In this research, we are going to explore the adverse effects of pollution on our environment....

Join our 150k of happy users

• Get original paper written according to your instructions
• Save time for what matters most

Fair Use Policy

EduBirdie considers academic integrity to be the essential part of the learning process and does not support any violation of the academic standards. Should you have any questions regarding our Fair Use Policy or become aware of any violations, please do not hesitate to contact us via [email protected].

We are here 24/7 to write your paper in as fast as 3 hours.

Provide your email, and we'll send you this sample!

By providing your email, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy .

Say goodbye to copy-pasting!

Get custom-crafted papers for you.

Enter your email, and we'll promptly send you the full essay. No need to copy piece by piece. It's in your inbox!

• Our Country Essay

500 Words Essay On Our Country

India, our country is the finest example of ‘unity in diversity. People from different backgrounds and religions live here in peace and harmony. Moreover, our country is known for having a variety of languages. So much so that you will find a different language at every 100 kilometres in our country. Through our country essay, we will take you through what India is.

Unity in Diversity- Our Country Essay

India is a unique country that harbours different kinds of people that speak different languages, eat different foods and wear a variety of clothes. What makes our country special is that despite so many differences, people always live together in peace.

Our country, India, lies in South Asia. It is a large country that is home to approximately 139 crore people. Moreover, India is also the biggest democracy in the whole world. Having one of the oldest civilizations, it is a very rich country.

Our country has fertile soil that makes it the largest wheat producer in the whole world. India has given birth to famous personalities in the field of literature and science. For instance, Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman, Dr Abdul Kalam, and others are Indians.

It is a country that is home to thousands of villages. Similarly, the fields of India are fed by the mighty rivers. For instance, Ganga, Kaveri, Yamuna, Narmada, and more are rivers of India.

Most importantly, the coasts of our country are guarded by the deep oceans and the mighty Himalayas are our natural frontiers. Being a secular state, India has a variety of religions that prosper happily together.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Famous Things of Our Country Essay

The culture of our country is immensely rich and famous worldwide. The different languages we speak and the different Gods we worship does not create differences between us. We all share the same spirit.

The spirit of India runs throughout the country. Further, India is famous for having a lot of tourist spots. For instance, the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Gateway of India, Hawa Mahal, Charminar, and more are quite popular.

These attractions bring together people from all over the world. Similarly, we have Kashmir which is known as paradise on earth. The natural beauty of Kashmir, the mighty rivers and gorgeous valleys truly make it a paradise.

Besides that, India is famous for having a very rich food culture. There are so many cuisines found within our country that it is not possible to have it all in one trip. We get to have the best of everything due to the richness.

Conclusion of Our Country Essay

All in all, our country has a thousand-year-old culture. It is also given the world the gifts of yoga and Ayurveda. Besides that, India has contributed significantly to the field of science, music, maths, philosophy, and more. It is an essential country in almost every sphere globally.

FAQ on Our Country Essay

Question 1: What makes our country special and different from other countries?

Answer 1: Our country is special and unique as it is responsible for giving many inventions to the world like the number zero, the game of chess, the value of pi, and more. There are around 90,000 kinds of animals in our country and about 50,000 plant species.

Question 2: How can we improve our country?

Answer 2: We can improve our country by sharing resources so we lower our ecological footprint. Further, it is essential to promote education and empower women. We must work together to reform the system so everyone gets a better life in our country.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Essay on Our Country

Students are often asked to write an essay on Our Country in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Our Country

Introduction.

Our country is a beautiful place filled with diverse cultures, traditions, and landscapes. It is our home, a place where we learn our first lessons and form our values.

Our country is blessed with mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts. These natural features provide us with resources and make our country unique.

Culture and Traditions

Our country is rich in traditions and cultures. Every region has its unique customs, festivals, and languages, creating a colorful mosaic of diversity.

Our country is our identity. It is our responsibility to preserve its heritage, protect its resources, and contribute to its growth.

250 Words Essay on Our Country

The essence of our country, geographical diversity.

The geographical expanse of our country is a microcosm of the world itself, featuring everything from towering mountains to expansive deserts, bustling cities to tranquil rural landscapes. This geographical diversity contributes to a wide array of lifestyles, customs, and traditions, fostering a sense of unity in diversity.

Cultural Melting Pot

Our country is a vibrant melting pot of cultures, a dynamic symphony of languages, religions, and ethnicities. This cultural diversity enriches our national identity, making us more tolerant, empathetic, and open-minded. It also offers a kaleidoscope of artistic, culinary, and spiritual experiences, further enhancing our collective cultural fabric.

Economic Dynamics

The economic dynamics of our country are as diverse as its geography and culture. From agriculture to technology, manufacturing to services, the economic landscape is broad and multifaceted. This economic diversity fuels innovation, fosters competition, and drives growth, contributing to the overall prosperity of our nation.

Political Landscape

The political landscape of our country is characterized by a democratic framework that upholds the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This political structure ensures the participation of every citizen in the governance process, reinforcing the democratic ethos of our country.

In conclusion, our country, with its geographical, cultural, economic, and political diversity, is a testament to the power of unity in diversity. It is a symbol of shared values, mutual respect, and collective prosperity, embodying the essence of a truly inclusive society.

500 Words Essay on Our Country

The geographical diversity of our country is astounding, ranging from the snow-capped Himalayas in the north to the sun-kissed beaches of the south, the dense forests of the east to the arid deserts of the west. This diversity has shaped the lives of the people, influencing their livelihoods, cultures, and traditions. It has also endowed us with rich biodiversity, making our country a haven for a multitude of flora and fauna.

Cultural Mosaic

Our country is a cultural mosaic, home to numerous ethnic groups, each with its unique culture, language, and traditions. This cultural diversity is our strength, fostering a sense of unity in diversity. It is this unity that has enabled us to withstand numerous challenges and adversities throughout history.

Economic Progress

Politically, our country is a vibrant democracy, where the power of governance lies in the hands of the people. The democratic fabric of our country has ensured that every citizen, irrespective of their social, economic, or cultural background, has a voice. This democratic ethos has fostered a culture of debate, discussion, and dissent, which is integral to the functioning of a healthy democracy.

Challenges and the Way Forward

Despite our achievements, we face several challenges. Socio-economic disparities, environmental degradation, corruption, and communal tensions threaten our progress. Addressing these issues requires collective effort, innovative solutions, and strong leadership. As we move forward, we must strive to uphold the values of democracy, secularism, and pluralism that define our national identity.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Spring Season Essay

The spring season is a time of year when the weather starts to change. It is a transition season between the winter and summer seasons. The days get longer and nights get shorter, the temperature is milder, and flowers bloom. There is a warm wind in the spring season in the air. Spring typically begins in March and usually lasts until May or June. The spring season essay helps kids learn about the seasons and activities performed during this season.

Moreover, when it is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the season of sheer joy and happiness, as it is a time of new beginnings for plants and trees. During spring, the sunshine is plentiful, and plants turn green. It’s also a time when many animals come out of winter hibernation.

Health Benefits of Spring Season

Spring is the perfect time to be outside. It is a time for new blossoms, festivals, and more. Spring is the best time to step out and get some fresh air, as the weather is pleasant. Besides, getting vitamin D helps with many health benefits, like boosting immunity, preventing cancer, and improving moods. The warmer weather is a great time to go outside for outdoor exercise; this can improve our mental health and physical well-being.

Furthermore, fresh air in springtime keeps our lungs healthy, helps us sleep better at night, and allows us to have energy throughout the day because the sunlight makes it easier on our bodies.

Festivities during the Spring Season

India is a land of different cultures and celebrations. As mentioned before, spring is the season of rejoicing and happiness. It is also a season of festivals and celebrations. Festivals like Ugadi, Bihu, Rath Yatra, Sarhul, and Baisakhi are celebrated in India during the spring season.

BYJU’S spring season essay in English is an excellent way to teach children about the beauty of nature and more about the changes that happen during the season. Little ones can engage in writing an essay on season spring and improve their vocabulary and grammar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should kids refer to byju’s spring season essay.

Kids must refer to BYJU’S spring season essay because it explains the changes in nature during spring, health benefits, and festivities celebrated during the spring season.

What are the different seasons in India?

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, and monsoon are the different seasons in India.

When does the spring season start?

The spring season starts in March every year. It is the transition season between the winter and summer seasons.

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

The four seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn (fall) and winter

The four seasons have very different characteristics.

Autumn (Fall)

Seasons are not the same everywhere, what causes the seasons, additional resources, bibliography.

Seasons are periods of the year with distinct weather conditions and day lengths. 

The four seasons — winter, spring, summer, autumn — can vary significantly in characteristics and can prompt changes in the world around them. Here, we explore the seasons of the year in more detail. 

Attributes of the seasons may vary by location, but there are still broad definitions that cross most of the boundaries.

In the spring , seeds take root and vegetation begins to grow. The weather is warmer and often wetter. Animals wake or return from warmer climates, often with newborns. Melting snow from the previous season, along with increased rainfall, can cause flooding along waterways, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  

In the summer , temperatures may increase to the hottest of the year. If they spike too high, heat waves or droughts may cause trouble for people, animals, and plants. For example, in the summer of 2003, the high temperatures claimed more than 30,000 lives, according to Encyclopedia Britannica . Rainfall may increase in some areas, as well. Others may receive less water, and forest fires may become more frequent.

When does summer start?

In the Northern Hemisphere, summer starts on June 1 and runs to August 31

What is the hottest summer on record?

Historically, the heatwave during the Dust Bowl Summer of 1936 was considered the hottest summer on record, but in 2021 the average summer temperature of the contiguous U.S. was 74.0 degrees Fahrenheit (23.3 degrees Celsius), 2.6 degrees above average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In the autumn , or fall, temperatures cool again. Plants may begin to grow dormant. Animals might prepare themselves for the upcoming cold weather, storing food or traveling to warmer regions. 

Various cultures have celebrated bountiful harvests with annual festivals. Thanksgiving is a good example. "Thanksgiving in the United States is a historical commemoration but it has a spiritual dimension strongly associated with homecoming and giving praise for what has been bestowed upon us," Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London, told Live Science.  

Why is it called autumn instead of fall?

Both 'autumn' and 'fall' are words used in the English language to describe the season that starts on 1 September in the Northern Hemisphere, with fall being commonly used in American English. According to Dictionary.com , the word autumn comes from the old French word 'autompne', which itself originated from the Latin 'autumnus'. The roots of the Latin name are obscure, but it was first recorded in the English language from the late 1300s.

Winter often brings a chill. Some areas may experience snow or ice, while others see only cold rain. Animals find ways to warm themselves and may have changed their appearance to adapt. "In a similar way to the Autumnal theme, Winter festivals celebrate the return of the light during a time of deepest physical darkness," said De Rossi. The Indian festival of Diwali, for example, which takes place between October and November, celebrates the triumph of righteousness, and light over darkness. 

Is winter the longest season?

Although it is easy to imagine the seasons neatly fitting into four equal lengths, according to NPR this isn't quite the case, they are all slightly different — and their duration changes depending on which hemisphere you are in. 

Due to the elliptical orbit of Earth around the sun, at certain points in the year the planet is moving faster and shortening the season. However, the distance from our star has less impact on Earth's seasons than the planet's tilt, which means that summers are warm in the Northern Hemisphere despite being further from the sun. As it is moving slower, the spring-summer season is also actually longer, by about seven days.

The timing and characteristics of the seasons depend upon the location on Earth . Regions near the equator experience fairly constant temperatures throughout the year, with balmy winters barely discernible from warm summers. This is because it gets fairly constant light from the sun, due to its position on the outer curve of the Earth, according to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program.

For areas to the north and south, the seasons can change more significantly. People closer to the poles might experience icier, more frigid winters, while those closer to the equator might suffer hotter summers. 

According to Time and Date : 

– Spring: March 1 to May 31;

– Summer: June 1 to August 31;

– Autumn (Fall): September 1 to November 30

– Winter: December 1 to February 28 (February 29 in a leap year).

Other factors can also affect the weather and temperature over the seasons; some areas experience dry summers as temperatures spike, while others might call summer their "wet season." A wet season is when a majority of a country or region's annual precipitation occurs, according to the Met Office . Mountainous regions might experience more snowfall than plains within the same latitude, while oceanfront property could see an increase in violent tropical storms as the weather shifts.

The time of year a region experiences a season depends on whether it is in the northern or southern hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere experiences winter while its northern neighbors encounter summer; the north sees the slow blossom of spring while the south brings in the autumn harvest.

The cycle of seasons is caused by our planet's tilt toward the sun . The Earth spins around an (invisible) axis. At different times during the year, the northern or southern axis is closer to the sun. During these times, the hemisphere tipped toward the star experiences summer, while the hemisphere tilted away from the sun experiences winter, according to NOAA .

At other locations in Earth's annual journey, the axis is not tilted toward or away from the sun. During these times of the year, the hemispheres experience spring and autumn.

The astronomical definition of the seasons relates to specific points in Earth's trip around the sun. The summer and winter solstice, the longest and shortest day of the year, occurs when Earth's axis is either closest or farthest from the sun. The summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere occurs around June 21, the same day as the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, according to NOAA. The south's summer solstice occurs around December 21, the winter solstice for the north. In both hemispheres, the summer solstice marks the first day of astronomical summer, while the winter solstice is considered the first day of astronomical winter.

Equinoxes are another significant day during Earth's journey around the sun. On these days, the planet's axis is pointed parallel to the sun, rather than toward or away from it. Day and night during the equinoxes are supposed to be close to equal. The spring, or vernal, equinox for the northern hemisphere takes place around March 20, the same day as the south's autumnal equinox. The vernal equinox in the southern hemisphere occurs around September 20, when people in the north celebrate the autumnal equinox . The vernal equinox marks the first day of astronomical spring for a hemisphere, while the autumnal equinox ushers in the first day of fall.

 – Seasonal Affective Disorder: SAD symptoms and therapy

– 9 allergy season symptoms

– Cicadas: Facts about the loud, seasonal insects  

But changes in the weather often precede these significant points. The meteorological seasons focus on these changes, fitting the seasons to the three months that best usher them in. December to February marks meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere and meteorological summer in the southern. March, April, and May are lauded as spring or autumn, depending on the location, while June through August are the months of summer for the north and winter for the south. September, October, and November conclude the cycle, ushering in fall in northern regions and spring in southern, according to NOAA.

The seasons can bring a wide variety to the year for those locations that experience them in full. The weather in each one may allow people to engage in activities that they cannot perform in others — skiing in the winter, swimming in the summer. Each season brings with it its own potential dangers, but also its own particular brand of beauty.

Explore the seasons in more detail with this educational material from Lumen Learning . Earth is not the only planet with seasons, if you would like to learn more about seasons on other planets check out this article from NASA .  Discover what causes the seasons with this informative piece from the National Weather Service . 

• De Paor, Declan G., et al. " Exploring the reasons for the seasons using Google Earth, 3D models, and plots. " International Journal of Digital Earth 10.6 (2017): 582-603. 
• Khavrus, Vyacheslav, and Ihor Shelevytsky. " Geometry and the physics of seasons. " Physics Education 47.6 (2012): 680. 
• Yolen, Jane. Ring of Earth: A Child's Book of Seasons . StarWalk Kids Media, 2014. 

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

• Alina Bradford Live Science Contributor
• Daisy Dobrijevic Reference Channel Editor, Space.com

Ocean Photographer of the Year 2024: See stunning photos of hungry whale, surfing seagull, freaky fish babies, land-loving eel and adorable toxic octopus

Earth from space: Ghostly figure emerges in Greenland ice after underground lake collapses

The bubbling surface of a distant star was captured on video for the 1st time ever

Most Popular

• 2 Ocean Photographer of the Year 2024: See stunning photos of hungry whale, surfing seagull, freaky fish babies, land-loving eel and adorable toxic octopus
• 3 NASA's Voyager 1 probe swaps thrusters in tricky fix as it flies through interstellar space
• 4 Ghostly figure emerges in Greenland ice after underground lake collapses
• 5 The James Webb telescope has brought cosmology to a tipping point. Will it soon reveal new physics?

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Essay On My Country: Sample Essay in 150 & 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Mar 18, 2024

India, a land of mystique and diversity, captivates the world with its vibrant tapestry of cultures, traditions, and landscapes. Nestled in South Asia, it stands as the world’s largest democracy and a cultural kaleidoscope-like no other. Its history spans millennia, giving rise to a rich tapestry of heritage that includes the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, the Mughal Empire, and the struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi.

The subcontinent’s breathtaking geography encompasses the towering Himalayas to the north, lush forests, fertile plains, and sun-kissed coastlines. India’s influence on art, cuisine, spirituality, and philosophy is profound, making it a captivating subject of exploration. Find out more about India after reading different Essays on My Country. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Geography and Landscape
• 2 Historical Significance
• 3 Festivals and Traditions
• 4 Sample Essay On My Country in 150 words
• 5 Sample Essay On My Country in 200 words
• 6 10 Lines Essay on My Country

Must Read: Essay on Rani Laxmi Bai: 100, 250 and 500 Words

Geography and Landscape

India, a vast South Asian nation, boasts diverse geography and landscapes. In the north, the mighty Himalayan mountain range stands tall, harbouring some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest. These snow-clad peaks not only define India’s northern border but also influence its climate and river systems.

Moving southward, the fertile Gangetic plains stretch across the country, nurturing agriculture and supporting a significant portion of India’s population. To the west lies the Thar Desert, a stark contrast to the lush plains, characterized by arid expanses and shifting dunes. India’s eastern regions are adorned with lush forests, hills, and the Sundarbans delta, famous for its rich biodiversity. Finally, the Indian Peninsula is surrounded by a vast coastline, featuring pristine beaches, coastal plains, and diverse ecosystems. 

Historical Significance

India boasts immense historical significance, with a rich tapestry of achievements and milestones:

• Indus Valley Civilization: Home to one of the world’s oldest urban civilizations, dating back to 2500 BCE.
• British Colonialism: India’s struggle for independence was led by figures like Mahatma Gandhi.
• Independence (1947): Gained freedom from British rule, becoming the world’s largest democracy.
• Partition: Witnessed the division into India and Pakistan, leading to significant socio-political changes.
• Economic Growth: Emerging as a global economic powerhouse.
• Cultural Diversity: A mosaic of languages, religions, and traditions, making it a cultural treasure.

Festivals and Traditions

India is renowned for its vibrant tapestry of festivals and traditions, reflecting its rich cultural diversity. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, illuminates the country with lamps and fireworks, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness. Holi, the Festival of Colors, is a riotous celebration marked by playful colour fights and festive music, celebrating the arrival of spring.

Religious traditions like Ramadan and Eid are observed with fasting and communal feasts by Muslims, while Christians celebrate Christmas with midnight masses and carols. India’s diverse population also celebrates regional festivals like Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Navratri in Gujarat, and Durga Puja in West Bengal, each with unique rituals and customs. These festivals not only strengthen cultural ties but also offer a glimpse into the vibrant tapestry of India’s traditions and spirituality.

Also Read: Essay on Population Explosion for Students in English

Sample Essay On My Country in 150 words

India is a homeland of myriad contrasts and a rich tapestry of ancient traditions and modernity. As the world’s largest democracy, it harmoniously embraces diversity with over a billion people representing an abundance of regions, languages and customers.

From the snow-capped Himalayan peaks in the north to the pristine beaches in the south, India’s geography mirrors the kaleidoscope of its people. Its history echoes with the saga of mighty empires from the Mauryas to the Mughals, and the reasonating struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Today, India stands tall as the economic powerhouse, a hub of technology and innovation, while preserving its cultural heritage. The land of contrast ideally mixes ancient wisdom with modern progress. This blend offers an encouraging journey through time and traditions.

Talking about modern India, which is rapidly rising as an economic powerhouse with other industries such as information technology, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, and more, is giving the country an edge. Furthermore, the prestige of the country´s prestigious space program has achieved remarkable feats like the Mars Orbiter Mission. 

The soft power of India resonates worldwide through its flourishing movies, music, literature, and cuisine. Moreover, major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru are cosmopolitan hubs driving innovation and entrepreneurship, paving a new and progressive path of development for a new and modern India.

Also Read:  World Heritage Day 2023: Theme, History, Significance

Sample Essay On My Country in 200 words

India, my beloved nation, is a captivating tapestry of history, culture, and diversity. Nestled in South Asia, it spans a vast landscape, from the towering Himalayas in the north to the sun-kissed beaches of the south. India’s essence lies in its unity in diversity, with a population that speaks hundreds of languages and practices various religions.

Historically, India has been the cradle of ancient civilizations, including the Indus Valley, Mauryan, Gupta, and Mughal empires. It was here that profound philosophies, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, were born. The struggle for independence, led by luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi, transformed India into a sovereign nation in 1947.

Today, India stands as the world’s largest democracy, a vibrant melting pot of traditions and modernity. It’s an economic powerhouse, driven by sectors like information technology, manufacturing, and agriculture. The iconic Taj Mahal, Jaipur’s royal palaces, and the spiritual city of Varanasi are just a glimpse of India’s architectural marvels.

India’s cultural diversity is equally enchanting. Classical dances like Bharatanatyam and Kathak, classical music with its mesmerizing ragas, and a variety of regional cuisines tempt the senses. Festivals like Diwali, Eid, and Holi add a riot of colours and celebrations to our lives.

India, with all its complexities, is a land that leaves an indelible mark on the heart of anyone who experiences its magic.

Also Read: Essay on Chandrayaan 3 🧑‍🚀: Timeline, Successful Landing

10 Lines Essay on My Country

Find the short and simple Essay on My Country in 10 lines:

Also Read: Essay on Indian Culture in 500 Words

A. India, a diverse nation, boasts a rich history, culture, stunning landscapes, and a billion people from various backgrounds.

A. India’s uniqueness lies in its cultural diversity, ancient history, and being the world’s largest democracy, blending tradition with modernity.

A. “India is my country, a land of vibrant traditions and diverse cultures, where unity amidst diversity thrives.”

Related Reads

We hope this blog gave you an idea about how to write and present an essay on my country that puts forth your opinions.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Amisha Khushara

Hey there! I'm a content writer who turns complex ideas into clear, engaging stories. Think of me as your translator, taking expert knowledge and making it interesting and relatable for everyone.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. take the first step today..

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Silent Spring—I

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to be in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards, where white clouds of bloom drifted above the green land. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wild flowers delighted the traveller’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter, the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall, people came from great distances to observe them. Other people came to fish streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days, many years ago, when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.

Then, one spring, a strange blight crept over the area, and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community; mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, and the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was the shadow of death. The farmers told of much illness among their families. In the town, the doctors were becoming more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness that had appeared among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among the adults but also among the children, who would be stricken while they were at play, and would die within a few hours. And there was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone? Many people, baffled and disturbed, spoke of them. The feeding stations in the back yards were deserted. The few birds to be seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. In the mornings, which had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, and wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marshes. On the farms, the hens brooded but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs; the litters were small, and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom, but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides were lined with brown and withered vegetation, and were silent, too, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves, and between the shingles of the roofs, a few patches of white granular powder could be seen; some weeks earlier this powder had been dropped, like snow, upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and the streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had snuffed out life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

This town does not actually exist; I know of no community that has experienced all the misfortunes I describe. Yet every one of them has actually happened somewhere in the world, and many communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim spectre has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and soon my imaginary town may have thousands of real counterparts. What is silencing the voices of spring in countless towns in America? I shall make an attempt to explain.

The history of life on earth is a history of the interaction of living things and their surroundings. To an overwhelming extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded and directed by the environment. Over the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. It is only within the moment of time represented by the twentieth century that one species—man—has acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world, and it is only within the past twenty-five years that this power has achieved such magnitude that it endangers the whole earth and its life. The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of the air, earth, rivers, and seas with dangerous, and even lethal, materials. This pollution has rapidly become almost universal, and it is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates, not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues, is for the most part irreversible. It is widely known that radiation has done much to change the very nature of the world, the very nature of its life; strontium 90, released into the air through nuclear explosions, comes to earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and, in time, takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death. It is less well known that many man-made chemicals act in much the same way as radiation; they lie long in the soil, and enter into living organisms, passing from one to another. Or they may travel mysteriously by underground streams, emerging to combine, through the alchemy of air and sunlight, into new forms, which kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure wells. As Albert Schweitzer has said, “Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.” It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth—aeons of time, in which that developing and evolving and diversifying life reached a state of adjustment to its surroundings. To be sure, the environment, rigorously shaping and directing the life it supported, contained hostile elements. Certain rocks gave out dangerous radiation; even within the light of the sun, from which all life draws its energy, there were short-wave radiations with power to injure. But given time—time not in years but in millennia—life adjusted, and a balance was reached. Time was the essential ingredient. Now, in the modern world, there is no time. The speed with which new hazards are created reflects the impetuous and heedless pace of man, rather than the deliberate pace of nature. Radiation is no longer merely the background radiation of rocks, the bombardment of cosmic rays, the ultraviolet of the sun, which existed before there was any life on earth; radiation is now also the unnatural creation of man’s tampering with the atom. The chemicals to which life is asked to make its adjustment are no longer merely the calcium and silica and copper and the rest of the minerals washed out of the rocks and carried in rivers to the sea; they are also the synthetic creations of man’s inventive mind, brewed in his laboratories and having no counterparts in nature. To adjust to these chemicals would require time on the scale that is nature’s; it would require not merely the years of a man’s life but the life of generations. And even this would be futile, for the new chemicals come in an endless stream; almost five hundred annually find their way into actual use in the United States alone. The figure is staggering and its implications are not easily grasped: five hundred new chemicals to which the bodies of men and all other living things are required somehow to adapt each year—chemicals totally outside the limits of biological experience.

Read classic New Yorker stories, curated by our archivists and editors.

Among the new chemicals are many that are used in man’s war against nature. In the past decade and a half, some six hundred basic chemicals have been created for the purpose of killing insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as “pests.” In the form of sprays, dusts, and aerosols, these basic chemicals are offered for sale under several thousand different brand names—a highly bewildering array of poisons, confusing even to the chemist, which have the power to kill every insect, the “good” as well as the “bad,” to still the song of birds and to stop the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with poison and to linger on in soil. It may prove to be impossible to lay down such a barrage of dangerous poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life. Indeed, the term “biocide” would be more appropriate than “insecticide”—all the more appropriate because the whole process of spraying poisons on the earth seems to have been caught up in an endless spiral. Since the late nineteen-forties, when DDT began to be used widely, a process of escalation has been going on in which ever more toxic chemicals must be found. This has happened because insects, in a triumphant vindication of Darwin’s principle of the survival of the fittest, have consistently evolved super-races immune to the particular insecticide used, and hence a deadlier one has always had to be developed—and then a deadlier one than that. It has happened also that destructive insects often undergo a “flareback,” or resurgence, after spraying, in numbers greater than before. The chemical war is never won, and all life is caught in its cross fire.

Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, a central problem of our age is the contamination of man’s total environment with substances of incredible potential for harm—substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals, and even penetrate the germ cells, to shatter or alter the very material of heredity, upon which the shape of the future depends. Some would-be architects of our future look toward a time when we will be able to alter the human germ plasm by design. But we may easily be altering it now by inadvertence, for many chemicals, like radiation, bring about gene mutations. It is ironic to think that man may determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of his insect spray. The results, of course, will not be apparent for decades or centuries. All this has been risked—for what? Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species of weeds and insects by a method that brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?

The problem whose attempted solution has touched off such a train of disaster is an accompaniment of our modern way of life. Long before the age of man, insects inhabited the earth—a group of extraordinarily varied and adaptable beings. Since man’s advent, a small percentage of the more than half a million species of insects have come into conflict with human welfare, principally in two ways—as competitors for the food supply and as carriers of human disease. Disease-carrying insects become important where human beings are crowded together, especially when sanitation is poor, as in times of natural disaster or war, or in situations of extreme poverty and deprivation. As for insects that compete with man for food, they become important with the intensification of agriculture—the devotion of immense acreages to the production of a single crop. Such a system sets the stage for explosive increases in specific insect populations. Single-crop farming does not take advantage of the principles by which nature works; it is agriculture as an engineer might conceive it to be. Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the various species within bounds. One important natural check is a limit on the amount of suitable habitat for each species. Obviously, an insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much higher levels on a farm devoted solely to wheat than on a farm where wheat is intermingled with crops to which the insect is not adapted. In all such circumstances, insect control of some sort is necessary and proper. But in the case of both types of insect—the disease-carrying and the crop-consuming—it is a sobering fact that massive chemical control has had only limited success, and even threatens to worsen the very conditions it is intended to curb.

Another aspect of the insect problem is one that must be viewed against a background of geological and human history—the spreading of thousands of different kinds of organisms from their native homes into new territories. This worldwide migration has been studied and graphically described by the British ecologist Charles Elton in his recent book “The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants.” During the Cretaceous period, some hundred million years ago, flooding seas created many islands within continents, and living things found themselves confined in what Elton calls “colossal separate nature reserves.” There, isolated from others of their kind, they developed large numbers of new species. When some of the land masses were joined again, about fifteen million years ago, these species began to move out into new territories—a movement that not only is still in progress but is now receiving considerable assistance from man. The importation of plants is the primary agent in the modern spread of species, for animals have almost invariably gone along with the plants—quarantine being a comparatively recent and never completely effective innovation. The United States government itself has imported approximately two hundred thousand species or varieties of plants from all over the world. Nearly half of the hundred and eighty-odd major insect enemies of plants in the United States are accidental imports from abroad, and most of them have come as hitchhikers on plants. In new territory, out of reach of the natural enemies that kept down its numbers in its native land, an invading plant or animal is able to increase its numbers enormously. Realistically speaking, it would seem that insect invasions, both those occurring naturally and those dependent on human assistance, are likely to continue indefinitely. We are faced, according to Dr. Elton, “with a life-and-death need not just to find new technological means of suppressing this plant or that animal” but to acquire the basic knowledge of animal populations and their relations to their surroundings that will “promote an even balance and damp down the explosive power of outbreaks and new invasions.” Much of the necessary knowledge is now available, but we do not use it. Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though we had lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of the American ecologist Paul Shepard, “idealizes life with only its head out of water, inches above the limits of toleration of the corruption of its own environment,” and he goes on to ask, “Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”

Yet such a world is pressed upon us. For the first time in history, virtually every human being is subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from birth to death. In the less than two decades of their use, DDT and other synthetic pesticides have been thoroughly distributed over all but a few corners of the world. They have been recovered from many of the major river systems, and even from the streams of ground water flowing unseen through the earth. They have been found in soil to which they were applied a dozen years before. They have lodged in the bodies of fish, birds, reptiles, and domestic and wild animals to the point where it is now almost impossible for scientists carrying on animal experiments to obtain subjects free from such contamination. They have been found in fish in remote mountain lakes, in earthworms burrowing in soil, in the eggs of birds, and in man himself. These chemicals are now stored in the bodies of the vast majority of human beings, regardless of their age. They occur in mother’s milk, and probably in the tissues of the unborn child.

All this has come about because of the prodigious growth of an industry for the production of synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties. This industry is a child of the Second World War. In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects. The discovery did not come by chance; insects were widely used to test chemicals as agents of death for man. In being man-made—by the ingenious laboratory manipulation of molecules, involving the substitution of atoms or the alteration of their arrangement—the new insecticides differ sharply from the simpler ones of prewar days. These were derived from naturally occurring minerals and plant products: compounds of arsenic, copper, lead, manganese, zinc, and other minerals; pyrethrum, from the dried flowers of chrysanthemums; nicotine sulphate, from some of the relatives of tobacco; and rotenone, from leguminous plants of the East Indies. What sets the new synthetic insecticides apart is their enormous biological potency. They can enter into the most vital processes of the body and change them in sinister and often deadly ways. Yet new chemicals are added to the list each year, and new uses are devised for them. Production of synthetic pesticides in the United States soared from 124,259,000 pounds in 1947 to 637,666,000 pounds in 1960—more than a fivefold increase. In 1960, the wholesale value of these products was well over a quarter of a billion dollars. But in the plans and hopes of the industry this enormous production is only a beginning. A Who ’ s Who of pesticides, therefore, is of concern to us all. If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their power.

The Who ’ s Who would certainly include some of the pesticides that were used before the Second World War. Chief among these is arsenic, which is still the basic ingredient of a variety of weed and insect killers. Arsenic is a mineral occurring widely in association with the ores of various metals, and, in very small amounts, in volcanoes, in the sea, and in spring water. Its relations to man are varied and historic. Since many of its compounds are tasteless, it has been a favorite agent of homicide from long before the time of the Borgias. It was also the first recognized elementary carcinogen (or cancer-causing substance), being identified in chimney soot and linked to cancer nearly two centuries ago by an English physician. Epidemics of chronic arsenical poisoning involving whole populations over long periods are on record. Arsenic-contaminated environments have also caused sickness and death among horses, cows, goats, pigs, deer, fishes, and bees, but arsenical sprays and dusts are still widely applied. In the arsenic-sprayed cotton country of the southern United States, beekeeping as an industry has nearly died out. Farmers using arsenic dusts over long periods have been afflicted with chronic poisoning; livestock have been poisoned by crop sprays or weed killers containing arsenic. “It is scarcely possible . . . to handle arsenicals with more utter disregard of the general health than that which has been practiced in our country in recent years,” Dr. W. C. Hueper, of the National Cancer Institute, an authority on environmental cancer, has said. “Anyone who has watched the dusters and sprayers of arsenical insecticides at work must have been impressed by the almost supreme carelessness with which these poisonous substances are dispensed.”

The vast majority of modern insecticides fall into one of two large groups of chemicals. One group, represented by DDT, consists of the chlorinated hydrocarbons. The other consists of the organic phosphates, and is represented by the reasonably familiar malathion and parathion. All have one thing in common: they are built on a basis of carbon atoms, which are also the indispensable building blocks of life, and thus both groups are classed as “organic.” Carbon is an element whose atoms have an almost infinite capacity for uniting with each other in chains and rings and various other configurations, and for becoming linked with atoms of other substances. Indeed, the incredible diversity of living creatures, from bacteria to whales, is due in large measure to this capacity of carbon. The complex protein molecule has the carbon atom as its basis, as have molecules of fat, carbohydrates, enzymes, and vitamins. So, too, have enormous numbers of nonliving things, for carbon is not necessarily a symbol of life. Some organic compounds are combinations of carbon and hydrogen. The simplest of these is methane, or marsh gas, which is formed in nature by the bacterial decomposition of organic matter under water. Mixed with air in certain proportions, it becomes the dreaded firedamp of coal mines. The structure of methane is beautifully simple—one carbon atom to which four hydrogen atoms have become attached. Chemists have discovered that it is possible to detach one or all of the hydrogen atoms and substitute other elements. For example, take away three hydrogen atoms and substitute chlorine atoms, and we have the anesthetic chloroform. Substitute chlorine atoms for all of the hydrogen atoms, and the result is carbon tetrachloride, the familiar cleaning fluid. These changes rung upon the basic molecule of methane illustrate in the simplest possible terms what a chlorinated hydrocarbon is. They give little hint of the complexity of the chemical world of the hydrocarbons, or of the manipulations by which the organic chemist creates his infinitely varied materials. For instead of the methane molecule, with its single carbon atom, he may work with hydrocarbon molecules consisting of many carbon atoms, arranged in rings or chains, and with side chains or branches, any of which may hold to themselves with chemical bonds not merely atoms of hydrogen or chlorine but also a wide variety of chemical groups. By seemingly slight changes, the whole character of the substance is transformed.

DDT (short for dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane) was first synthesized by a German chemist in 1874, but its properties as an insecticide were not discovered until 1939. Almost immediately thereafter, it was hailed as a means of stamping out insect-borne disease and winning the farmers’ war against crop destroyers overnight, and, in due course, the chemist who had discovered its ability to kill insects, Paul Müller, of Switzerland, won the Nobel Prize. DDT is now so universally used that in most minds it has taken on the harmless aspect of the familiar. Perhaps the myth of the harmlessness of DDT rests on the fact that one of its first uses was the wartime dusting of many thousands of soldiers, refugees, and prisoners, to combat lice. It is widely believed that since so many people came into extremely intimate contact with DDT and suffered no immediate ill effects, the chemical must certainly be an innocent one. This understandable misconception arises from the fact that—unlike other chlorinated hydrocarbons—DDT in powder form is not readily absorbed through the skin. It does penetrate readily when it is dissolved in oil, as it usually is. If it is swallowed, it is absorbed slowly through the digestive tract; it may also be absorbed through the lungs. Once DDT, which, like all the chlorinated hydrocarbons, is soluble in fat, has entered the body, it is stored largely in organs rich in fatty substances, such as the adrenals, the testes, and the thyroid, and relatively large amounts are also deposited in the liver, the kidneys, and the fat of the large, protective mesentery, the tissue that enfolds the intestines and attaches them to the body wall. This storage of DDT begins with the smallest conceivable intake, and the fatty storage depots act as biological magnifiers, so that an intake of as little as one-tenth of one part per million in the diet results in the storage of from ten to fifteen parts per million—a hundredfold increase, or more. These terms of reference, so commonplace to the chemist or the pharmacologist, are unfamiliar to most of us. One part in a million sounds like a very small amount—and so it is. But some substances are so potent that a minute quantity can bring about vast changes in the body. For example, as little as three parts of DDT per million has been found to inhibit an oxidative enzyme in the heart muscle of experimental animals. In other experiments, only five parts of DDT per million brought about necrosis, or disintegration, of the cells of the liver; only 2.5 parts of the closely related insecticides dieldrin and chlordane have the same effect. This is really not surprising. In the normal chemistry of the human body, too, there is just such a disparity between cause and effect. For example, a quantity of iodine as small as two ten-thousandths of a gram can spell the difference between health and disease. Because these small amounts of pesticides are cumulatively stored and, in general, are built up at a rate higher than that at which they are excreted, the threat of chronic poisoning and of degenerative changes of the liver and other organs is a real one.

Scientists are not sure how much DDT can be stored in the human body. Some believe that there is a ceiling beyond which absorption and storage cease. Others do not. For practical purposes, it is not particularly important which view is right. Storage in human beings has been well investigated, and we know roughly how much the average person is storing. According to various studies, individuals with no known exposure except the inevitable dietary one store from 5.3 parts per million to 7.4 parts per million; agricultural workers about 17.1 parts per million; and workers in insecticide plants as high as 648 parts per million. Potentially harmful amounts undoubtedly vary from individual to individual, and, in any case, harmful results may not occur for years. The chemists’ ingenuity in devising insecticides long ago outstripped the biologists’ knowledge of the way these poisons affect the living organism.

One of the most significant features of DDT and related chemicals is the way they are passed on from one organism to another through all the links of the food chains. Fields of alfalfa, say, are dusted with DDT; meal is later prepared from the alfalfa and fed to hens; the hens lay eggs that contain DDT. Or the hay, containing residues of from seven to eight parts per million, may be fed to cows. The DDT will turn up in the milk in the amount of about three parts per million, but in butter made from this milk the concentration may run to sixty-five parts per million. During the process of transfer, what started out as a very small amount of DDT may end as a heavy concentration. The poison may be passed on from mother to offspring. The presence of insecticide residues in human milk has been established by Food and Drug Administration scientists. This is probably not the breast-fed infant’s first exposure, however; there is good reason to believe that he starts receiving toxic chemicals while he is still in the womb. In experimental animals, the chlorinated-hydrocarbon insecticides freely cross the barrier of the placenta, the traditional protective shield between the embryo and harmful substances in the mother’s body. While the quantities so received by human infants would normally be small, they would not be unimportant, because children are more susceptible to poisoning than adults.

Chlordane, another chlorinated hydrocarbon, has all the unpleasant attributes of DDT, plus a few that are peculiarly its own. Its residues are long persistent in soil, on foodstuffs, and on surfaces to which it may be applied, yet it is also quite volatile, and poisoning by inhalation is a definite risk to anyone handling it or exposed to it. Chlordane takes advantage of all available portals in entering the body. A diet containing such a small amount of chlordane as 2.5 parts per million may eventually lead to storage of seventy-five parts per million in the fat. In 1950, Dr. Arnold J. Lehman, who is the chief pharmacologist of the Food and Drug Administration, described chlordane as “one of the most toxic of insecticides,” adding, “Anyone handling it could be poisoned.” To judge by the carefree liberality with which dusts for treating suburban lawns are laced with chlordane, this warning has not been taken to heart. If a suburbanite handling one of them is not instantly stricken, this does not mean he has escaped harm; the toxins may sleep long in his body, to become manifest months or years later in an obscure disorder that is almost impossible to trace to its origins. However, death may sometimes strike quickly. One man who accidentally spilled a twenty-five-per-cent solution of chlordane on his skin developed symptoms of poisoning within forty minutes and died before medical help could be obtained.

Heptachlor, one of the constituents of chlordane, is marketed as a separate formulation. It has a particularly high capacity for storage in fat. If the diet contains as little as a tenth of one part per million, there will be measurable amounts of heptachlor in the body. It also has the curious ability to undergo change into a chemically distinct substance known as heptachlor epoxide. It does this in soil and in the tissues of both plants and animals. Laboratory tests on quail show that the epoxide is from two to four times as toxic as the original chemical.

As long ago as the mid-nineteen-thirties, a special group of hydrocarbons, the chlorinated naphthalenes, had been found to cause hepatitis and a rare and almost invariably fatal disease known as yellow atrophy of the liver in persons subjected to occupational exposure. These chemicals have led to illness and death of workers in electrical industries (where they are used in insulation), and more recently, in agriculture, they have been considered a cause of a mysterious and usually fatal disease of cattle. It is not surprising that three of the insecticides that belong to this group are among the most violently poisonous of all the hydrocarbons. These are dieldrin, aldrin, and endrin.

Dieldrin, named for a German chemist, Otto Diels, is about five times as toxic as DDT when it enters the body through the mouth and forty times as toxic when it is absorbed through the skin in solution. It is notorious for striking quickly at the nervous system, sending the victim into convulsions. Because the insecticidal action of dieldrin is particularly potent, and because its residues persist for a long period, it is one of the most widely used insecticides today. There are vast gaps in our knowledge of how dieldrin is stored and distributed in the body, and of the extent to which it is excreted, but there are indications of long storage in the human body, where deposits may lie dormant like a slumbering volcano, only to flare up in periods of physiological stress, when the body draws upon its fat reserves. Much of what we do know has been learned through hard experience in the anti-malarial campaigns carried out by the World Health Organization. As the malaria mosquitoes have become resistant to DDT, dieldrin has been substituted in malaria-control work, and, as this has happened, cases of poisoning have appeared among the spraymen. A study published in 1959 reported that the seizures were severe; from half to all of the men affected—the proportion varied in different programs—went into convulsions, and several died. Some were still subject to convulsions as long as four months after the last exposure.

Aldrin is a still more mysterious substance, for although it exists as a separate entity, it bears the relation of alter ego to dieldrin. When carrots are taken from a bed treated with aldrin, they are found to contain residues of dieldrin—a change that occurs both in the living tissues and in the soil. If a chemist, knowing that aldrin has been applied, tests for it, he will be deceived into thinking all residues have been dissipated. The residues are there, but they are dieldrin, and this requires a different test. In any event, aldrin is slightly more toxic than dieldrin. It has produced degenerative changes in the liver and kidneys of experimental animals. A quantity the size of an aspirin tablet is enough to kill more than four hundred quail. Many cases of human poisoning are on record, most of them in connection with industrial handling. Beyond that, aldrin, like most of this group of insecticides, projects a menacing shadow into the future—the shadow of sterility. Birds that consume it in quantities too small to kill them lay few eggs, and the chicks that hatch soon die. Rats who have been exposed to aldrin have fewer pregnancies, and their young are sickly and short-lived, and puppies whose mothers have been exposed to the poison have been known to die within three days. By one means or another, the new generations suffer as a result of poisoning of their parents. No one knows whether the same effect will be seen in human beings.

The third of the naphthalenes, endrin, is perhaps the most toxic of all the chlorinated hydrocarbons now in use. Although it is chemically rather closely related to dieldrin, a little twist in its molecular structure makes it up to twelve times as poisonous to rats; by comparison, DDT seems almost harmless. In the decade of its use, endrin has killed enormous numbers of fish, has fatally poisoned cattle that have wandered into sprayed orchards, and has poisoned wells. At least one state health department has warned that careless use of endrin is endangering human lives. But even apparently careful use can be dangerous. In 1958, an American couple with a year-old boy had gone to live in Venezuela.. There were cockroaches in the house they moved into, and after a few days they used a spray containing endrin. The baby and the small family dog were taken out of the house before the spraying was done, about nine o’ clock one morning. After the spraying, the floors were washed. The baby and dog were returned to the house in midafternoon. An hour or so later, the dog vomited, went into convulsions, and died. At ten in the evening, the baby also vomited and went into convulsions, and then lost consciousness. At once, this normal, healthy child became little more than a vegetable—unable to see or hear, subject to frequent muscular spasms, and, it would seem, completely cut off from his surroundings. Several months of treatment in a New York hospital failed to change his condition or bring hope of change. “It is extremely doubtful,” reported the attending physicians, “that any useful degree of recovery will occur.”

The second major group of insecticides, the organic phosphates—esters of phosphoric acid—are among the most poisonous chemicals in the world. The origin of these chemicals has a certain ironic significance. Some of them had been known for many years, but their insecticidal properties were first discovered by a German chemist, Gerhard Schrader, in the late nineteen-thirties. Almost at once, the German government recognized the value of these chemicals as new and devastating weapons in man’s war against his own kind, and work on them was declared secret. Some became nerve gases. Others became insecticides. The chief and most obvious hazard attending their use is that of acute poisoning of people applying the sprays or accidentally coming in contact with drifting spray, or vegetation coated with it, or a discarded container. In Florida, in 1960, two children used a discarded bag to repair a swing. Shortly thereafter, both of them died, and three of their playmates became ill. The bag had once contained the insecticide parathion, and tests established death by parathion poisoning.

The organic-phosphate insecticides act on the living organism in a peculiar way. They have the ability to destroy enzymes—enzymes that perform necessary functions in the body. Their target, whether the victim is an insect or a warm-blooded animal, is the nervous system. Under normal conditions, an impulse passes from nerve to nerve with the aid of a “chemical transmitter” called acetylcholine, a substance that performs an essential function and then disappears. Indeed, its existence is so ephemeral that without special procedures medical researchers are unable to sample it before the body has destroyed it. The transient nature of the chemical transmitter is necessary to the normal functioning of the body. If the acetylcholine is not inactivated as soon as a nerve impulse has passed, impulses continue to flash across the bridge from nerve to nerve; the chemical not only goes on exerting its effect but exerts it in an ever more intensified manner. The movements of the whole body become uncoördinated; tremors, muscular spasms, convulsions, and death quickly result. Fortunately, the body has its own protective device against this peril—an enzyme called cholinesterase, which breaks down the transmitting chemical once it is no longer needed. By this means, a precise balance is struck, and the body never builds up a dangerous amount of acetylcholine. But on contact with the organic-phosphate insecticides the activity of the protective enzyme is inhibited, and as the effective quantity of the enzyme is reduced, that of the chemical transmitter builds up. In having this effect, the organic-phosphate compounds resemble the alkaloid poison muscarine, found in a poisonous mushroom, the fly amanita. Repeated exposure may lower the cholinesterase level until an individual reaches the brink of acute poisoning—a brink over which he may be pushed by a very small additional exposure. For this reason, it is considered important to make periodic examinations of the blood of spray operators and others regularly exposed.

Parathion is one of the most widely used of the organic phosphates. It is also one of the most powerful. Honeybees become agitated and bellicose on contact with it, engage in frantic cleaning movements, and are near death within half an hour. A chemist, hoping to learn by the most direct means the dose acutely toxic to human beings, swallowed a minute amount, about .00424 of an ounce. Paralysis followed so swiftly that he could not reach the antidotes he had at hand, and so he died. One of the circumstances that save us from extinction by parathion and the other chemicals of the organic-phosphate group is that they are decomposed rather rapidly. However, they last long enough to create hazards and produce consequences that range from the merely serious to the fatal. In Riverside, California, eleven out of thirty men picking oranges became violently ill, and all but one of the eleven had to be hospitalized. The grove had been sprayed with parathion some two and a half weeks earlier; the residues that reduced them to retching, half-blind, semi-conscious misery were from sixteen to nineteen days old. And this is not by any means a record for persistence. On citrus fruit, parathion has been found to have a “half life” of from sixty to eighty days; in that amount of time, half the chemical disintegrates. The danger to all workers applying the organic-phosphate insecticides is so extreme that some states using these chemicals have established laboratories where physicians may obtain aid in diagnosis and treatment. The physicians themselves may be in some danger, unless they wear rubber gloves while they are handling the victims of poisoning. So may a laundress washing a victim’s clothing. Parathion is now said to be a favorite instrument of suicide in Finland. In recent years, the state of California has reported an average of two hundred cases of accidental parathion poisoning annually. In many parts of the world, the fatality rate from parathion is startling: a hundred fatal cases in India and sixty-seven in Syria in 1958, and an average of three hundred and thirty-six a year in Japan. Yet some six million pounds of parathion are now applied annually to fields, orchards, and vineyards of the United States—by hand sprayers, by motorized blowers and dusters, and by airplane. The amount used on California farms alone could, according to Dr. Irma West, of the California State Department of Public Health, “provide a lethal dose for five to ten times the whole world’s population.”

Malathion is almost as familiar to the public as DDT, being widely used in gardening, in household insecticides, in mosquito spraying, and in such blanket attacks on insects as the spraying of nearly a million acres in Florida for the Mediterranean fruit fly. It is considered the least toxic of the organic phosphates, and many people assume that they may use it freely. Actually, the alleged safety of malathion rests on rather precarious ground, although—as often happens—this was not discovered until the chemical had been in use for several years. Malathion is “safe” only because the mammalian liver, an organ with extraordinary protective powers, renders it relatively harmless. The detoxication is accomplished by one of the enzymes of the liver. If, however, something destroys this enzyme or interferes with its action, the person exposed to malathion receives the full force of its toxic action, which resembles that of the other organic phosphates. Unfortunately for all of us, opportunities for this sort of thing to happen are legion. A few years ago, a team of Food and Drug Administration scientists discovered that when malathion and one of the other organic phosphates are administered simultaneously, a severe poisoning results—up to fifty times as severe as one would predict on the basis of adding together the toxicities of the two. In other words, one one-hundredth of the lethal dose of each compound can be fatal when the two are combined. This discovery led to the testing of other combinations, and, although the full scope of the interaction of chemicals has not yet been determined, it is now known that many pairs of organic-phosphate insecticides are similarly dangerous, the toxicity being “potentiated,” or stepped up, through the combined action. Potentiation seems to take place when one compound destroys the liver enzyme responsible for detoxicating the other. The two need not be given simultaneously. And the hazard exists not only for the man who may spray this week with one insecticide and next week with another; it exists also for the consumer of sprayed products. The common salad bowl may easily present a combination of organic-phosphate insecticides in quantities large enough to interact.

In Greek mythology, the sorceress Medea, enraged at being supplanted by a rival in the affections of her husband, Jason, presented the new bride with a robe possessing magical properties The wearer of the robe immediately suffered a violent death. This death-by-indirection now has its counterpart in what are known as “systemic insecticides.” These are chemicals that are used to convert plants or animals into a sort of Medea’s robe. The purpose is to kill insects that may come in contact with these poisonous beings, especially by sucking their juices or their blood. The world of systemic insecticides is a weird world, surpassing the imaginings of the brothers Grimm. It is a world where the enchanted forest of the fairy tales has become a poisonous forest. It is a world where a flea bites a dog and dies, where an insect may die as a result of chewing a leaf or inhaling vapors emanating from a plant it has never touched, where a bee may carry poisonous nectar back to its hive and presently produce poisonous honey.

The entomologists’ dream of the built-in insecticide was born when workers in the field of applied entomology realized they could take a hint from nature: they found that wheat growing in soil that contains sodium selenate was poisonous to aphids. Selenium, a naturally occurring element found sparingly in rocks and soils of many parts of the world, thus became the first systemic insecticide. What makes an insecticide a systemic is its ability to permeate all the tissues of a plant or animal and make them toxic. This quality is possessed by some chemicals of the chlorinated-hydrocarbon group and by others of the organic-phosphate group, all synthetically produced. In practice, most systemics are drawn from the organic-phosphate group, because with these the problem of residues is somewhat less acute.

Systemics can act in devious ways. Applied to seeds, either by soaking or by means of a coating in which the systemic is combined with carbon, they extend their effects into the following plant generation and produce seedlings poisonous to aphids and other sucking insects. Such vegetables as peas, beans, and sugar beets are sometimes thus protected. Cotton seeds coated with a systemic called phorate have been in use for some time in California, and in 1959 twenty-five farm laborers in the San Joaquin Valley, who had handled bags of treated seeds, were seized with sudden illness. In England, someone wondered what happened when bees made use of nectar from plants that had been treated with systemics. This was investigated in areas treated with a chemical called schradan. Although the plants had been sprayed before the flowers were formed, the nectar they produced contained the poison. The result, as might have been predicted, was that the honey made by the bees was also contaminated with schradan.

Animal systemics have been used chiefly to control the cattle grub, a damaging parasite of livestock. Extreme care must be taken in order to create an insecticidal effect in the blood and tissues of the host without setting up a fatal poisoning. The balance is very delicate indeed, and government veterinarians have found that repeated small doses can gradually deplete an animal’s supply of cholinesterase, so that without warning a minute additional dose will cause poisoning. As yet, no one seems to have proposed a human systemic that would make us lethal to a mosquito. Perhaps this is the next step.

When we turn our attention to herbicides, or weed killers, we quickly come across the legend that they are toxic only to plants. Unfortunately, this is only a legend. The plant killers include a large variety of chemicals that act on animal tissue as well as on vegetation. No general statement can describe the action of all of them. Some are general poisons; some are powerful stimulants of metabolism, causing a fatal rise in body temperature; some can induce malignant tumors, either alone or in partnership with other chemicals; some can cause gene mutations.

Arsenic compounds are still liberally used, both as insecticides and as weed killers, where they usually take the chemical form of sodium arsenite. The history of their use is not reassuring. As roadside sprays, they have cost many a farmer his cow and killed uncounted numbers of wild creatures. As aquatic weed killers, they have made public waters unsuitable for drinking, or even for swimming. As a spray applied to potato fields to destroy the vines, they have taken a toll of human and non-human life. In England, this last practice developed in about 1951, as a result of a shortage of sulphuric acid, which had formerly been used to burn off the potato vines. The Ministry of Agriculture considered it necessary to issue a warning of the hazard of going into arsenic-sprayed fields, but the warning was not understood by the cattle (or by the wild animals and birds), and reports of poisoned cattle were received with monotonous regularity. In 1959, after death came to a farmer’s wife through arsenic-contaminated water, one of the major English chemical companies stopped production of arsenical sprays and called in supplies already in the hands of dealers, and shortly thereafter the Ministry of Agriculture announced that restrictions on the use of arsenites would be imposed. In 1961, the Australian government announced a similar ban. No such restrictions impede the use of these poisons in the United States.

The most widely used herbicides are 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and related members of what is known as the phenol group. Many experts deny that these are toxic. However, people spraying their lawns with 2,4-D and becoming wet with spray have occasionally developed severe neuritis and even paralysis. Although such incidents are apparently uncommon, medical authorities advise caution in the use of these compounds. Other hazards, more obscure, may also attend the use of 2,4-D. Experiments have shown its ability to disturb the basic physiological process of respiration in the cell, and, like X-rays, to damage the chromosomes. Some very recent work indicates that sub-lethal doses of these herbicides may affect reproduction in birds. The rest of the phenols may be equally dangerous. Dinitrophenol, for example, steps up the metabolism. For this reason, it was at one time used in the United States as a reducing drug, but the margin between the slimming dose and the dose required to poison or kill was slight—so slight that at least nine patients died and many suffered permanent injury before use of the drug was finally halted. It interferes with the body’s source of energy in such a way that the affected organism almost literally burns itself up. A related chemical, pentachlorophenol, sometimes known as “penta,” is used both as a weed killer and as an insecticide, often being sprayed along railroad tracks and in waste areas. The fearful power of penta, which acts in much the same way as dinitrophenol, is illustrated in a fatal accident recently reported by the California State Department of Public Health. A man was preparing a cotton defoliant by mixing diesel oil with penta. As he was drawing the concentrated chemical out of a drum, the spigot accidentally toppled back. He reached in with his bare hand to regain the spigot. Although he washed immediately, he became acutely ill, and died the next day.

Curious indirect results follow the use of certain herbicides. It has been found that animals—both wild herbivores and livestock—are sometimes strangely attracted to a plant that has been sprayed, even though it is not one of their natural foods. Apparently, the wilting that follows spraying (or cutting) makes the plant attractive. If a highly poisonous herbicide, such as arsenic, has been used, this intense desire to reach the wilting vegetation inevitably has disastrous consequences. Such consequences may also stem from the use of less toxic herbicides in cases where the plant itself happens to be poisonous or, perhaps, to possess thorns or burs. Poisonous range weeds, for example, have suddenly become attractive to livestock after spraying, and the animals have died from indulging this unnatural appetite. The literature of veterinary medicine abounds in similar examples: swine eating sprayed cockleburs with consequent severe illness, lambs eating sprayed thistles, bees poisoned by pasturing on mustard that had been sprayed after it came into bloom. Wild cherry, the leaves of which are highly poisonous, has had a fatal attraction for cattle once its foliage has been sprayed with 2,4-D. The explanation of this peculiar behavior sometimes appears to lie in the changes that the chemical brings about in the metabolism of the plant. There is a temporary but marked increase in sugar content, and many animals seek the plant out for its sweetness.

Another curious effect of 2,4-D has important consequences for livestock and wildlife, and apparently for men as well. Experiments carried out about a decade ago showed that after treatment with this chemical there is a sharp increase in the nitrate content of corn and of sugar beets, and that this might also be true of sorghum, sunflower, spiderwort, lamb’s-quarters, pigweed, and smartweed. Some of these are normally ignored by cattle but are eaten with relish after treatment with 2,4-D. According to some agricultural specialists, a number of deaths among cattle have been traced to such sprayed weeds. All ruminants—not only cattle but wild ruminants, such as deer, antelope, sheep, and goats—have a digestive system of extraordinary complexity, including a stomach divided into several chambers. The digestion of cellulose is accomplished in one of the chambers, through the action of microorganisms known as rumen bacteria. When the animal feeds on vegetation containing nitrates, the rumen bacteria change them into nitrites, and if the level of nitrates is abnormally high, a fatal series of events ensues. When the nitrites are present in large quantities, they act on the blood pigment to form a chocolate-brown substance in which oxygen is so firmly held that it cannot be transferred from the lungs to the tissues. And death occurs within a few hours from anoxia, or lack of oxygen. Now it appears that the custom of spraying corn with 2,4-D may be a factor in the current increase in the number of “silo deaths”—deaths of men who have entered silos where corn, oats, or sorghum containing large amounts of nitrates have released poisonous nitrogen oxide gases. So serious is the problem that the New York State Coöperative Extension Service recently issued a poster warning, “Silo gases can kill you and your herd!” Although various factors, including exceptionally dry weather, can cause an increase in nitrate content, the effect of 2,4-D cannot be ignored. The situation was considered important enough by the University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station to justify a warning in 1957 that “plants killed by 2,4-D may contain large amounts of nitrate.” Only a few breaths of one of the gases released by nitrates can cause a diffuse chemical pneumonia. In a series of cases studied by the University of Minnesota Medical School, all but one terminated fatally.

The pollution of our environment has many sources—radioactive wastes, fallout from nuclear explosions, domestic wastes from cities and towns, and chemical wastes from factories as well as the new fallout from chemical sprays—and it affects every one of man’s natural resources. Of these, water has become the most precious. By far the greater part of the earth’s surface is covered by its seas, yet in the midst of this plenty we are in want. Most of the earth’s abundant water is not usable for agriculture, industry, or human consumption, because of its heavy load of salts, and so most of the world’s population either is experiencing critical shortages of water or is threatened with them. And the water that is usable has become—in an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind to the very conditions that are most essential to his survival—the victim of man’s indifference.

Ever since chemists began to manufacture substances that nature never invented, the problems of water purification have grown more complex and the danger to users of water has increased. In rivers, a really incredible variety of pollutants is present, producing combined deposits that the sanitary engineers can only refer to despairingly as “gunk.” Professor Rolf Eliassen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified before a congressional committee to the impossibility of identifying the organic matter resulting from the mixture. “We don’t know what that is,” said Professor Eliassen. “What is the effect on people? We don’t know.” We do know one thing, and that is that to an ever-increasing degree pesticides contribute to these organic pollutants. Because they become inextricably mixed with domestic and other wastes, they sometimes defy detection by the standard methods used in purification plants. Often they cannot be identified, and even if they are, most of them are so stable that they cannot be broken down by ordinary processes. Some are deliberately applied to bodies of water to destroy plants, insect larvae, or undesired fish. Some come from forest spraying, in the course of which two or three million acres of one of our states may be blanketed with spray directed against a single insect pest—spray that falls directly into streams or else drips down through the leafy canopy to the forest floor, there to become part of the slow movement of seeping moisture beginning its long journey to the sea. Probably the bulk of such contaminants, however, consists of water-borne residues of the millions of pounds of agricultural chemicals that have been leached out of the ground by rains to become part of the same seaward movement.

Here and there we have dramatic evidence of the presence of these chemicals in our streams, and even in public water supplies. A sample of drinking water from an orchard area in Pennsylvania was tested on fish in a laboratory; it contained enough insecticide to kill all the fish within four hours, The runoff from fields treated with a chlorinated hydrocarbon called toxaphene killed all the fish in fifteen streams tributary to the Tennessee River, in Alabama, two of which were sources of municipal water supplies; the water remained poisonous for a week after the application of the insecticide—a fact that was determined by the daily deaths of goldfish suspended in cages downstream. For the most part, such pollution is invisible; it may make its presence known when hundreds or thousands of fish die, but more often it is never detected at all.

Anyone who doubts that our waters have become almost universally contaminated with insecticides might well study a brief report issued by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1960. The Service had carried out studies to discover whether fish, like warm-blooded animals, store insecticides in their tissues. The first samples were taken from a creek in a forest area in the West where there had been mass spraying of DDT for the control of the spruce budworm. As might have been expected, all these fish contained DDT. The really significant findings were made when the investigators turned for comparison to a remote creek thirty miles from the nearest area sprayed for budworm control. This creek was upstream from the first, and separated from it by a high waterfall. No local spraying was known to have occurred. Yet the fish in that creek, too, contained DDT. Had the chemical been airborne, drifting down as fallout on the surface of the creek? Or had it reached the creek by hidden underground streams?

Probably no aspect of the entire water-pollution problem is more disturbing than the threat of widespread contamination of ground water. Seldom if ever does nature operate in separate compartments, and she has not done so in distributing the earth’s water supply. As rain falls on the land, it seeps down through pores and cracks in soil and rock, penetrating deeper and deeper, until eventually it reaches a zone where all the pores of the bedrock are filled with water—a dark, subsurface sea, rising under hills, sinking beneath valleys. This ground water is always on the move, sometimes as slowly as fifty feet a year, sometimes as rapidly as nearly a tenth of a mile in a day. It travels unseen until, here and there, it comes to the surface as a spring, or perhaps is tapped to feed a well. But mostly it contributes invisibly to streams, and so to rivers. Except for the water that enters streams directly as rain or surface runoff, all the running water on the earth’s surface was at one time ground water. And so pollution of the ground water is pollution of water everywhere.

It must have been by such a dark underground sea that poisonous chemicals travelled from a manufacturing plant in Colorado to a farming district several miles away. What happened, in brief, is this. In 1943 the Rocky Mountain Arsenal of the Army Chemical Corps, situated near Denver, began to manufacture war materials. Eight years later, the facilities of the arsenal were leased to a private oil company for the production of insecticides. Even before the changeover, however, mysterious reports had begun to come in. Farmers several miles from the plant reported unexplained sickness among livestock, and they complained of extensive crop damage; foliage turned yellow, plants failed to mature, and many crops were killed outright. And there were reports of human illness. The waters used for the irrigation of these farms were derived from shallow wells. In 1959, a study was undertaken, in which several state and federal agencies participated, and when the well waters were examined they were found to contain an assortment of chemicals. Such wastes as chlorides, chlorates, salts of phosphonic acid, fluorides, and arsenic had been discharged from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal during the years of its operation by the Army Chemical Corps. It was concluded that some of these wastes had found their way into the ground water at the arsenal and that it had taken from seven to eight years for them to travel underground a distance of about three miles from two of the arsenal’s original holding ponds—mere depressions in the earth, into which wastes were discharged—to the nearest farm. The investigators knew of no way to contain the contamination—to halt its advance. All this was bad enough, but the most mysterious and probably, in the long run, the most significant feature of the whole episode was the discovery of 2,4-D in the holding ponds of the arsenal, even though no 2,4-D had been manufactured there during any stage of operations. After long and careful study, the chemists at the plant concluded that the 2,4-D had been formed spontaneously in the holding ponds, from other substances discharged from the arsenal; in the presence of catalyzing air and sunlight, and quite without the intervention of human chemists, the ponds had become laboratories for the production of a new chemical.

Indeed, one of the most alarming aspects of the chemical pollution of water is the fact that in river or lake or reservoir—or, for that matter, in the glass of water served at your dinner table—are mingled chemicals that no responsible chemist would think of combining in his laboratory. The possible interactions between these chemicals, often comparatively harmless in themselves, are deeply disturbing to officials of the United States Public Health Service. The reactions may take place between two or more chemicals, or between various chemicals and radioactive wastes. Under the impact of ionizing radiation, rearrangements of atoms could easily occur, changing the nature of the chemical in a wholly unpredictable way, and one that would be wholly beyond control.

A striking example of the contamination of surface waters seems to be building up in the National Wildlife Refuges at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake, both in California. These refuges are part of a group, which also includes the refuge on Upper Klamath Lake, just over the border in Oregon. The three are linked, perhaps fatefully, by a shared water supply, and they lie like small islands in a great sea of surrounding farmlands—land reclaimed by drainage and stream diversion from an original waterfowl paradise of marsh and open water. These farmlands around the refuges are now irrigated by water from Upper Klamath Lake. The irrigation waters, having been re-collected from the fields they have served, are pumped into Tule Lake and from there into Lower Klamath Lake. In the summer of 1960, biologists picked up hundreds of dead and dying birds at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake. Most of them were fish-eating species—herons, pelicans, grebes, gulls. Upon analysis, they were found to contain insecticide residues identified as the chlorinated hydrocarbons toxaphene, DDD, and DDE. Fish from the lakes were also found to contain the insecticide residues; so were samples of plankton. It appears that pesticide residues are now building up in the waters of these refuges, being conveyed there by return irrigation flow from heavily sprayed agricultural lands. The refuges are critically important to the conservation of Western waterfowl. They lie in a strip of territory corresponding to the narrow neck of a funnel, in which all the migratory paths constituting what is known as the Pacific Flyway converge. During the fall migration, the three refuges receive many millions of ducks and geese, from nesting grounds that extend from the shores of the Bering Sea east to Hudson Bay—in fact, fully three-fourths of all the waterfowl that move south into or through the Pacific Coast states in autumn. During the summer, the refuges provide nesting areas for waterfowl, and especially for two endangered species, the redhead and the ruddy duck. If the lakes and pools of these refuges become seriously contaminated, the damage to the waterfowl populations of the Far West could be irreparable.

Water, of course, supports long chains of life—from the small-as-dust green cells of the drifting plant plankton, through the minute water fleas, to the fish that strain plankton from the water and are, in turn, eaten by other fish or by birds, mink, raccoons, and man himself, in an endless transfer of materials from life to life. We know that the minerals necessary for all these forms of life are extracted from the water and passed from link to link of the food chains. Can we suppose that poisons we introduce into water will not follow the same course? The answer is to be found in the recent history of Clear Lake, California. Clear Lake lies in mountainous country some ninety miles north of San Francisco and has long been popular with anglers. The name is plainly inappropriate; actually the lake is rather turbid, because its bottom, which is shallow, is covered with soft black ooze. Unfortunately for the fishermen and the resort dwellers on its shores, its waters have long provided an ideal habitat for a small gnat, Chaoborus astictopus. Although the gnat is closely related to mosquitoes, it is not a bloodsucker; indeed, it probably does not feed at all as an adult. However, the human beings who came to share its habitat found it annoying, because of its sheer numbers. Efforts were made to control it, but they were largely fruitless until, in the late nineteen-forties, the chlorinated-hydrocarbon insecticides offered a new weapon. The chemical chosen for a fresh attack was DDD, an insecticide that apparently offered fewer threats to fish life than DDT. The new control measures, undertaken in September of 1949, were carefully planned, and few people would have supposed that any harm could result. The lake was surveyed, its volume was determined, and the insecticide was applied in the concentration of one part to every seventy million parts of water. Control of the gnats was good at first, but by September of 1954 the treatment had to be repeated, and this time the chemical was added in the concentration of one part in fifty million parts of water. The destruction of the gnats was then thought to be virtually complete. The following winter months brought the first intimation that other life was affected; the western grebes on the lake began to die, and soon more than a hundred of them had been reported dead. At Clear Lake, the western grebe is a breeding bird and also a winter visitant, attracted by the abundant fish of the lake. It is a bird of spectacular appearance and beguiling habits, building floating nests in shallow lakes of the western United States and western Canada. It is sometimes called the “swan grebe,” and with reason, for it glides with scarcely a ripple across the lake surface, its body riding low and its white neck and shining black head held high. The newly hatched chick is clothed in soft gray down; only a few hours after emerging from the shell it takes to the water, riding on the back of the father or mother, nestled under the parental wing coverts. Following a third assault on the ever-resilient gnat population, in September, 1957—again in a concentration of one part of DDD to fifty million parts of water—more grebes died. Both then and in 1954, no evidence of infectious disease could be discovered on examination of the dead birds. But when someone thought of analyzing the fatty tissues of the grebes, they were found to be loaded with DDD in the extraordinary concentration of sixteen hundred parts per million. How could the chemical have built up to such prodigious levels? The grebes, of course, are fish eaters. When the fish of Clear Lake were also analyzed, the picture began to take form: The poison had been picked up by the smallest organisms, concentrated, and passed on to the larger ones, which concentrated it further. Plankton organisms were found to contain about five parts per million of the insecticide; plankton-eating fish had built up accumulations ranging from forty to three hundred parts per million; carnivorous species of fish had stored the most of all. One fish, a brown bullhead, had the astounding concentration of twenty-five hundred parts per million. It was a house-that-Jack-built sequence, in which the large carnivores had eaten the smaller carnivores, which had eaten the herbivores, which had eaten the plankton, which had absorbed the poison from the water.

Even more extraordinary discoveries were made later. No trace of DDD could be found in the water shortly after the last application of the chemical. But the poison had not really left the lake; it had merely gone into the fabric of the life that the lake supported. Twenty-three months after the chemical treatment had ceased, the plankton still contained as much as 5.3 parts of it per million. In that interval of nearly two years, successive crops of plankton had flowered and faded away, but the poison had somehow passed from generation to generation. And it lived on in the animal life of the lake as well. All fish, birds, and frogs examined a year after the chemical applications had ceased still contained DDD. The amount found in the flesh always exceeded by many times the original concentration in the water. Among these living carriers were fish that had hatched nine months after the last application of DDD. California gulls had built up concentrations of more than two thousand parts per million. The grebes still carried heavy residues, and meanwhile their nesting colonies had dwindled, from more than a thousand pairs before the first insecticide treatment to about thirty pairs in 1960. Even the thirty seem to have nested in vain, for no young grebes have been observed on the lake since the last DDD application. And what of the human being who has rigged his fishing tackle, caught a string of fish from the waters of Clear Lake, and taken them home to fry for supper? What could a heavy dose of DDD—and perhaps repeated heavy doses—do to him? The California State Department of Public Health professed to see no hazard, yet in 1959 it required that the use of DDD in the lake be stopped. In view of the evidence, the action seems a minimum safety measure.

The thin layer of soil that forms a patchy covering over the continents controls our own existence and that of every other animal of the land. Without soil, land plants as we know them could not grow, and without plants no animal could survive. Yet if our life depends on the soil, it is equally true that soil depends on life; its very origins and the maintenance of its true nature are intimately related to living plants and animals. For soil is in part a creation of life, born of a marvellous interaction of life and inert matter aeons ago. The parent materials were gathered together as volcanoes poured them out in fiery streams, as waters running over the bare rocks of the continents wore away even the hardest granite, and as the chisels of frost and ice split and shattered the rocks. Then living things began to work their creative magic, and little by little these inert materials became soil. Lichens, the rocks’ first covering, aided the process of disintegration by means of acid secretions and made a lodging place for other life. Mosses took hold in these little pockets of simple soil—soil formed by crumbling bits of lichen, by the husks of minute insect life, by the debris of a fauna beginning its emergence from the sea. And not only did life help form the soil but living things now exist within it in incredible abundance and diversity; if this were not so, the soil would be a dead and sterile thing. The soil exists in a state of constant change, taking part in cycles that have no beginning and no end. New materials are constantly being contributed as rocks disintegrate, as organic matter decays, and as nitrogen and other gases are brought down in rain from the skies. Simultaneously, materials are being taken away, harrowed temporarily for use by living creatures. Subtle and vastly important chemical changes are constantly in progress, converting elements derived from air and water into forms suitable for the support of plant life, and in all these changes living organisms are active agents.

There are few studies more fascinating, and at the same time more neglected, than the study of the teeming populations that exist in the dark realms of the soil. We know too little of the links that bind the soil organisms to each other, to their world, and to the world above. Perhaps the most essential organisms in the soil are the smallest—the invisible hosts of bacteria and of threadlike fungi. Statistics of their abundance take us at once into astronomical figures. A teaspoonful of topsoil may contain billions of bacteria. In spite of their minute size, the combined weight of bacteria in the top foot of a single acre of fertile soil, which itself weighs from ten to seventeen tons, may be as much as a thousand pounds. Ray fungi, growing in long filaments, are somewhat less numerous than the bacteria, but since they are larger, their total weight in a given amount of soil may be about the same. With small, green cells of algae, these make up the microscopic plant life of the soil. Bacteria, fungi, and algae are the principal agents of decay, reducing plant and animal residues to their component materials. The vast cyclic movements of chemical elements, such as carbon and nitrogen, through soil and air and living tissue could not proceed without these microplants. Without the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, for example, plants would starve for want of nitrogen, though they are surrounded by nitrogen-containing air. Other soil organisms form carbon dioxide, which on being dissolved in water becomes carbonic acid and aids in dissolving rock. Still other soil microbes perform the various oxidations and reductions by which minerals such as iron, manganese, and sulphur are transformed and made available to plants. Also present in prodigious numbers in the soil are microscopic mites and primitive, wingless insects called springtails. Small as they are, both play an important part in breaking down the residues of plants, and thus aid in the slow conversion of the litter of the forest floor to soil. The specialization of some of these minute creatures for their task is almost incredible. Several species of mites, for example, can begin life only within needles that have fallen from a spruce tree. Sheltered there, they digest out the inner tissues of the needle. By the time the mites have completed their development, only the outer layer of cells remains. The truly staggering task of dealing with the tremendous amount of plant material in the annual leaf fall belongs to some of the small insects of the soil and the forest floor. They macerate and digest the leaves, and help to mix the decomposed matter with the surface soil.

Besides all this horde of minute but ceaselessly toiling creatures, there are, of course, many larger forms, for soil life runs the gamut from bacteria to mammals. Some of these larger forms are permanent residents of the dark, subsurface layers; some hibernate or spend certain parts of their life cycles in underground chambers; some come and go freely between their burrows and the upper world. In general, the effect of all this habitation of the soil is to aerate it and to improve both its drainage and the penetration of water throughout the layers of plant growth. Of all the larger inhabitants of the soil, probably none is more important than the earthworm. Just over three-quarters of a century ago, Charles Darwin published a book titled “The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits.” In it he gave the world its first understanding of the fundamental role that earthworms play as geological agents for the transport of soil—a picture of surface rocks being gradually covered by fine soil brought up from below by the worms, which ingest earth in building burrows and as food and eject it near the surface in annual amounts running to many tons to the acre in the most favorable areas. At the same time, they draw quantities of organic matter contained in leaves and grass—as much as twenty pounds to the square yard in six months—down into the burrows, where they become part of the soil. Darwin’s calculations showed that the toil of earthworms might produce a layer of soil from an inch to an inch and a half thick in a ten-year period. This is by no means all they do. Their burrows aerate the soil, keep it well drained, and aid the penetration of plant roots. And organic matter is broken down as it passes through their digestive tracts, so the soil is enriched by their excretory products.

What happens to the inhabitants of the soil when poisonous chemicals are carried down into their world, either introduced directly as soil “sterilants” or sprayed on crops or borne by rain that has picked up a lethal contamination as it filtered through the leaf canopy of forest and orchard and cropland? Is it reasonable to suppose that a so-called broad-spectrum insecticide can kill the burrowing larval stages of a crop-destroying insect without also killing the insects whose function may be the essential one of breaking down organic matter? Or can we use a non-specific fungicide in orchards without also killing the fungi that inhabit the roots of many trees and aid the tree in extracting nutrients from the soil? The plain truth is that this critically important subject of the ecology of the soil has been largely neglected even by scientists and almost completely ignored by control men. The chemical control of insects seems to have proceeded on the assumption that the soil could and would sustain any amount of insult without striking back. From the few studies that have been made, a picture of the impact of pesticides on the soil is slowly emerging. The studies are not always in agreement, for soil types vary enormously and what causes damage in one may be innocuous in another. Light, sandy soils suffer far more heavily than humus types, for example, and combinations of chemicals often seem to do more harm than separate applications. Despite the varying results, enough solid evidence of harm is accumulating to cause apprehension on the part of the scientists concerned.

Under some conditions, the chemical conversions and transformations that lie at the very heart of the living world are affected. For example, the herbicide 2,4-D causes a temporary interruption of nitrification. Recent experiments in Florida showed that three chlorinated hydrocarbons—heptachlor, BHC (benzene hexachloride), and lindane, which is an isomer of BHC—reduced nitrification after only two weeks in the soil; BHC and DDT had significantly detrimental effects a year after treatment. In other experiments, it was found that BHC, lindane, aldrin, heptachlor, and DDD all prevented nitrogen-fixing bacteria from forming the necessary root nodules on leguminous plants, and also that a curious but beneficial relation between fungi and the roots of higher plants was seriously disrupted. Sometimes the problem is one of upsetting that delicate balance of populations by which nature accomplishes far-reaching aims. Explosive increases in certain kinds of soil organisms have occurred when other kinds have been reduced by insecticides, disturbing the relation of predator to prey. Such changes could easily alter the metabolic activity of the soil and affect its productivity. They could also mean that potentially harmful organisms, formerly held in check, might take on the status of pests.

One of the most important things to remember about insecticides in soil is their persistence. Aldrin has been recovered after four years, both as traces and, more abundantly, as converted to dieldrin. Ten years after the application of toxaphene to sandy soil, enough remains to kill termites. BHC persists a least eleven years, and heptachlor at least nine. Chlordane has been recovered after twelve years. Seemingly moderate applications of insecticides over a period of years may build up fantastic quantities in soil. The legend that “a pound of DDT to the acre is harmless” means nothing if spraying is repeated. Potato soils have been found to contain up to fifteen pounds of DDT per acre, corn soils up to nineteen. A cranberry bog under study contained thirty-four and a half pounds to the acre. Soils from apple orchards seem to reach the peak of contamination, for the rate at which DDT accumulates here almost keeps pace with its rate of annual application. In a single season, if orchards are sprayed four or more times, DDT residues may amount to as much as fifty pounds to the acre. Arsenic provides a classic instance of the virtually permanent poisoning of the soil. Although since the mid-forties arsenic as a spray on growing tobacco has been largely replaced by the synthetic insecticides, the arsenic content of cigarettes made from American-grown tobacco increased more than three hundred per cent between the years 1932 and 1962. Dr. Henry S. Satterlee, an authority on arsenic toxicology, says that the soils of tobacco plantations are now thoroughly impregnated with arsenic residues in the form of a heavy and relatively insoluble poison, arsenate of lead. This will continue to release arsenic in soluble form. As Dr. Satterlee puts it, the soil of a large proportion of the land planted with tobacco has been subjected to “cumulative and well-nigh permanent poisoning.” Tobacco grown in the eastern Mediterranean countries, where arsenical insecticides are not used, has shown no such increase in arsenic content.

The question arises to what extent insecticides are absorbed into plant tissues from contaminated soils. Much depends on the type of soil, the crop, and the nature and the concentration of the insecticide. Soils high in organic matter release smaller quantities of poisons than others do. Carrots absorb more insecticide than any other crop studied; if the insecticide used happens to be lindane, carrots actually accumulate higher concentrations than are present in the soil. In the future, it may become necessary to analyze soils for insecticides before planting certain food crops. Otherwise, unsprayed crops may take up enough insecticide from the soil to render them unfit for market. This very sort of contamination has already created endless problems for at least one leading manufacturer of baby foods, who has been unwilling to buy any fruits or vegetables that have been exposed to insecticides. The chemical that caused him the most trouble was BHC, which is taken up by the roots and tubers of plants, and which advertises its presence by a musty taste and odor. Sweet potatoes grown in California fields where BHC had been used two years earlier contained residues, and the firm had to reject them. Another year, in which the firm had contracted for its total requirements of sweet potatoes with growers in South Carolina, so large a proportion of the acreage was found to be contaminated that the company was forced to buy in the open market, at a considerable financial loss. The manufacturer’s most stubborn problem has been with peanuts. In the Southern states, peanuts are usually grown in rotation with cotton, on which BHC is extensively used, and the peanuts pick up considerable amounts of the insecticide. Actually, only a trace is enough to give them the telltale musty odor and taste. The chemical penetrates the nuts and cannot be removed.

Sometimes the menace is to the crop itself—a menace as long-lasting as the insecticide contamination of the soil. Some insecticides affect sensitive plants such as beans, wheat, barley, and rye, retarding root development or inhibiting the growth of seedlings. The experience of the hop growers of Washington and Idaho is an example. During the spring of 1955, many of these growers undertook a large-scale program to control the strawberry-root weevil, whose larvae had become abundant on the roots of the hops. On the advice of agricultural experts and insecticide manufacturers, they chose heptachlor to do the job. Within a year after the heptachlor was applied, in both dust and spray forms, the vines in the treated yards were wilting and dying. In the untreated fields there was no trouble; in fact, the damage stopped at the border between treated and untreated fields. The fields were replanted, at great expense, but the next year the new roots, too, were found to be dead. Four years later, the soil still contained heptachlor, and scientists were unable to predict how long it would remain poisonous, or to recommend any procedure for correcting the condition. The United States Department of Agriculture, which as late as March, 1959, had declared heptachlor to be acceptable for use on hops in the form of a soil treatment, thereafter belatedly withdrew its registration for such use. Meanwhile, the hop growers sought what redress they could in the courts.

In continuing to contaminate the soil, we are almost certainly headed for trouble. This was the consensus of a groups of specialists who met in 1960 at the College of Forestry of the State University of New York, in Syracuse, to discuss the ecology of the soil. These men summed up the hazards of using “such potent and little understood tools” as chemicals and radioactive substances: “A few false moves on the part of man may result in destruction of soil productivity and the arthropods may well take over.”

Water, soil, and the earth’s green mantle of plants make up the world that supports the animal life of the earth. Although modern man seldom remembers the fact, he could not exist without the plants that harness the sun’s energy and manufacture the basic foodstuffs he depends upon for life. Our attitude toward plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant, we foster it. If, for any reason, we find its presence undesirable, or even simply a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith. Besides the various plants that are poisonous to man or his livestock, or crowd out food plants, many are marked for destruction merely because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and many others are destroyed merely because they happen to be associates of the unwanted plants. Sometimes we have no choice but to disturb the relationships between plants and the earth, between plants and other plants, and between plants and animals, yet we should do so thoughtfully, with full awareness that what we do may have consequences remote in time and place.

One example of our unthinking bludgeoning of the landscape is to be seen in the sagebrush lands of the West, where a vast campaign has been launched to destroy the sage and substitute grass. If ever an enterprise needed to be illuminated with a sense of the history and meaning of the landscape, it is this one. For here the natural landscape is eloquent of the interplay of forces that have created it. It is spread before us like the pages of an open book, telling why the land is what it is, and why we should preserve its integrity. But the pages lie unread. The land of the sage is the land of the high Western plains and the lower slopes of the mountains that rise above them—a land born of the uplift of the Rocky Mountain system many millions of years ago. It is a place of harsh extremes of climate: of long winters when blizzards drive down from the mountains and snow lies thick on the plains, of summers whose heat is relieved only by scanty rains, with drought biting deep into the soil, and dry winds stealing moisture from leaf and stem. In the evolution of this landscape, there must have been a long period of trial and error as plants attempted the colonization of the high and wind-swept land. One after another must have failed. At last, a group of plants took root that combined all the qualities needed for survival. The sage—low-growing and shrubby—could maintain its hold on the mountain slopes and on the plains, and within its small gray leaves it could store moisture enough to defy the thieving winds. It was no accident but, rather, the result of long ages of experimentation by nature that the great plains of the West became the land of the sage.

Along with the plants, animal life was evolving in harmony with the searching requirements of the land. In time there were two animals as well adjusted to their habitat as the sage. One was a mammal, the fleet and graceful pronghorn antelope. The other was a bird, the sage grouse—the “cock of the plains” of Lewis and Clark. The sage and the grouse seem made for each other. The range of the bird coincides with the range of the sage, and the sage is all things to these birds of the plains. The low sage of the foothill ranges shelters their nests and their young; the denser growths are loafing and roosting areas; at all times the sage provides the staple food of the grouse. Yet it is a two-way relationship. The spectacular courtship displays of the cocks help loosen the soil beneath and around the sage, aiding invasion by grasses that can grow in the shelter of the sagebrush. The antelope, too, have adjusted their lives to the sage. Though some of them summer in the mountains, they are primarily animals of the plains, and in winter, when the first snows come, they all seek the lower elevations. There the sage provides the food that tides them over the winter. Where all other plants have shed their leaves, the gray-green leaves of the sage—bitter, aromatic, rich in proteins, fats, and needed minerals—cling to the stems of the densely growing plants. Though the snows pile up, the tops of the sage remain exposed, or can be reached by the sharp, pawing hoofs of the antelope. Then grouse feed on them, too, finding them on bare and windswept ledges or following the antelope to spots where they have scratched away the snow. Other life also looks to the sage. Mule deer often feed on it. Sage may mean survival to winter-grazing livestock. Sheep graze many winter ranges where the big sage brush forms almost pure stands. For half the year, it is their principal forage, and it is a plant of higher energy value than even alfalfa hay.

The upland plains, the purple wastes of sage, the wild, swift antelope, and the grouse are then a natural system in perfect balance. Or, rather, in many places, there was such a balance. In recent years, the land-management agencies have set about satisfying the insatiable demands of the cattlemen for more grazing land. By this they mean grassland—grass without sage. Few seem to have asked whether grassland is a stable and desirable goal in the region. Certainly nature’s own answer was no. The annual precipitation in this land is not enough to support good sod-forming grass; rather, it favors the bunch grass that grows in the shelter of the sage. Yet millions of acres of sagebrush lands are sprayed each year. What are the results? The long-term effects of eliminating sage and seeding with grass are largely conjectural. Men of long experience in the ways of the land say that in this country there is better growth of grass between and under the moisture-holding sage than can possibly be had in pure stands. But even if the program succeeds in its immediate objective, it is clear that the whole closely knit fabric of life is being ripped apart. The antelope and the grouse will disappear, along with the sage. Even the livestock, which are the intended beneficiaries, will suffer; no amount of lush green grass in summer can help the sheep starving in the winter storms for lack of the sage and bitter brush and other wild vegetation of the plains. These are the first and obvious effects. Others are of the kind that is always associated with the shotgun approach to nature: the spraying also eliminates a great many plants that were not its intended target. Justice William O. Douglas, in his recent book “My Wilderness: East to Katahdin,” has told of an example of ecological destruction wrought by the Forest Service in the Bridger National Forest, in Wyoming. Yielding to the pressure of cattlemen for more grassland, the Service sprayed some ten thousand acres of sage lands. The sage was killed, as was intended. But so was a green, life-giving ribbon of willows that traced its way across these plains, following the meandering streams. Moose had lived in these willow thickets, for willow is to the moose what sage is to the antelope. Beavers had lived there, too, feeding on the willows, felling them, and making strong dams across the tiny streams. Through the labor of the beavers, a lake backed up. Trout in the mountain streams were seldom more than six inches long; in the lake they thrived so prodigiously that many grew to five pounds. Waterfowl were attracted to the lake. But with the “improvement” instituted by the Forest Service, the willows went the way of the sagebrush, killed by the same, impartial spray. When Justice Douglas visited the area in 1959, the year of the spraying, he was shocked to see the shrivelled and dying willows—the “vast, incredible damage.” What would become of the moose? Of the beavers and the little world they had constructed? A year later, he returned to read the answers in the devastated landscape. The moose were gone, and so were the beavers. The principal beaver dam had gone out for want of attention by its skilled architects, and the lake had drained away. None of the large trout were left, for none could live in the tiny creek that remained, threading its way through a bare, hot land.

Besides the more than four million acres of range lands sprayed each year, large areas of other types of land are potential or actual recipients of chemical treatments for weed control. For example, in the United States an area larger than all of New England—some fifty million acres—is under the management of utility corporations, and much of it is routinely treated for “brush control.” In the Southwest, an estimated seventy-five million acres of mesquite lands require management by some means, and chemical spraying is the method most actively pushed. An unknown but very large acreage of timber-producing lands is now aerially sprayed for the purpose of “weeding out” the hardwoods from the more spray-resistant conifers. Added to these are an estimated fifty-three million acres of agricultural lands, perhaps two million acres of non-crop lands, and countless private lawns, parks, and golf courses, the combined acreage of which must reach an extremely large figure. And besides all this, there are our roadsides.

Roadside brush control is practiced in all parts of the country, with the object of eliminating plants that ultimately grow tall enough to obstruct drivers’ vision or to interfere with wires on rights of way. This is a legitimate object, but as roadside spraying is commonly carried out, it has many undesirable side effects. One of them is economic. The town fathers of a thousand communities lend willing ears to the chemical salesmen and the eager contractors who will rid their roadsides of “brush.” Spraying, they are told, is cheaper than mowing. So, perhaps, it appears in the neat rows of figures in the official books, but were the true cost entered, the wholesale broadcasting of chemicals would be seen to be far more expensive, both in dollars and in the infinite damage it does. Take, for example, a commodity that is prized by every chamber of commerce throughout the land—the good will of vacationing tourists. There is a steadily growing chorus of outraged protest at the disfigurement of once beautiful roadsides by chemical sprays. “We are making a dirty, brown, dying-looking mess along the sides of our roads,” a New England woman wrote angrily to her local newspaper last fall. “This is not what the tourists expect, with all the money we are spending advertising the beautiful scenery.” In the summer of 1960, conservationists from many states converged on a beautiful Maine island to witness its presentation to the National Audubon Society by its owner, Millicent Todd Bingham. The focus that day was on the preservation of the natural landscape, with its intricate web of life whose interwoven strands lead from microbe to man. But in the background of all the conversations among the visitors to the island was indignation at the despoiling of the roads they had travelled to reach it. Once, it had been a joy to follow those roads through the evergreen forests—roads lined with bayberry and sweet fern, alder and huckleberry. Now all was brown desolation. One of the conservationists wrote of that summer pilgrimage, “I returned . . . angry at the desecration of the Maine roadsides. Where, in previous years, the highways were bordered with wild flowers and attractive shrubs, there were only the scars of dead vegetation for mile after mile. . . . As an economic proposition, can Maine afford the loss of tourist good will that such sights induce?”

Botanists at the Connecticut Arboretum, in New London, declare that the elimination of beautiful native shrubs and wild flowers has reached the proportions of a “roadside crisis.” Azaleas, mountain laurel, blueberry, huckleberry, viburnum, dogwood, hayberry, sweet fern, low shadbush, winterberry, chokecherry, and wild plum are dying under the chemical barrage. So are the daisies, the black-eyed Susans, the Queen Anne’s lace, the goldenrod, and the fall asters. In the spring of 1957, trees within the Connecticut Arboretum Natural Area were seriously injured when the town of Waterford sprayed the roadsides with chemical weed killers. Even large trees not directly sprayed were affected. The leaves of the oaks began to curl and turn brown, although it was the season for spring growth. Then new shoots appeared, and these grew with abnormal rapidity, giving a “weeping” appearance to the trees. Two seasons later, large branches on some of these trees had died, other branches were without leaves, and the deformed, weeping effect of whole trees persisted.

I know well a stretch of road where nature’s own landscaping once provided a border of alder, viburnum, sweet fern, and juniper, with seasonally changing accents of bright flowers, and of fruits hanging in jewelled clusters in the fall. The road had no heavy load of traffic to support, and there were few sharp curves or intersections where brush could obstruct the driver’s vision. Nevertheless, the sprayers took over, and the miles along that road became something to be traversed quickly, a sight to be endured with one’s mind closed to thoughts of the sterile and hideous world we are letting our technicians make. Here and there, though, authority had faltered, and by an unaccountable oversight there were oases of beauty—oases that made the desecration of the greater part of the road the more unbearable. In such places, my spirit lifted to the sight of the drifts of white clover or the clouds of purple vetch, with here and there the flaming cup of a wood lily. Such plants are “weeds” only to those who make a business of selling and applying weed killers.

There is, of course, more to the wish to preserve our roadside vegetation than aesthetic considerations. In the economy of nature, the natural vegetation has its essential place. Hedgerows along country roads and the edges of fields provide food, cover, and nesting areas for birds and homes for many small animals; indeed, of some seventy species of shrubs and vines that are typical roadside species, about sixty-five are important to wildlife as food. Such vegetation is also the habitat of wild bees and other pollinating insects. Man is more dependent on these wild pollinators than he usually realizes. Even the farmer seldom understands the value of wild bees, and often participates in measures that rob him of their services. Not only many wild plants but some agricultural crops are partly or wholly dependent on the services of the native pollinating insects; several hundred species of wild bees take part in the pollination of cultivated crops—a hundred species visiting the flowers of alfalfa alone. Moreover, in the absence of insect pollination, most of the soil-holding and soil-enriching plants of uncultivated areas would die out, with far-reaching consequences for the ecology of the whole region. A great variety of herbs, shrubs, and trees of our forests and ranges depend on native insects for their reproduction, and without these plants many wild animals and much range stock would find little food. Now “clean” cultivation and the chemical spraying of hedgerows and weeds, including some of those that bees depend upon heavily for food, are eliminating the last sanctuaries of these pollinating insects and thereby breaking the threads that bind life to life. The bees, so essential to our agriculture and indeed to our landscape as we know it, deserve something better from us than the senseless destruction of their habitat.

Ironically, the all-out chemical assault perpetuates the problems it seeks to correct. Ragweed, the bane of hayfever sufferers, offers an interesting example of the way efforts to control nature sometimes boomerang. Many thousands of gallons of chemicals have been discharged along roadsides in the name of ragweed control, but the unfortunate truth is that blanket spraying is resulting in more ragweed, not less. Ragweed is an annual; each year its seedlings require open soil in order to become established. Our best protection against this plant is therefore the maintenance of dense shrubs and ferns and other perennial vegetation. Spraying destroys this protective vegetation and creates open, barren areas, which the ragweed hastens to fill.

Just as ironically, some spraying actually creates new problems. The chemical 2,4-D, by killing out the broad-leaved plants, allows the grasses to thrive, and now some of the grasses themselves have become “weeds,” presenting a new problem of control and giving the cycle another turn. This situation is acknowledged in a recent issue of a technical journal devoted to crop problems, which notes that “with the widespread use of 2,4-D to control broad-leaved weeds, grass weeds in particular have increasingly become a threat to corn and soybean yields.”

We persist in this inefficient approach despite the fact that a perfectly sound method of selective spraying is known, which can achieve long-term vegetational control and eliminate repeated spraying of most types of vegetation. Selective spraying was developed by Dr. Frank Egler, a plant ecologist who was for some years associated with the American Museum of Natural History and who is the chairman of a Committee for Brush Control Recommendations for Rights of Way. The method he devised takes advantage of the fact that the best and cheapest controls for vegetation are not chemicals but other plants. Trees find it difficult to gain a foothold in a community of shrubs, and on roadsides most shrubs, and all ferns and wild flowers, are low enough to present no hazard to drivers and no obstruction to wires. Selective spraying, in contrast to blanket spraying, is directed only at trees and exceptionally tall shrubs, the poison being applied at the base. (Cutting down a tree is seldom a permanent solution, because many trees will grow again.) One spraying may be sufficient to eliminate such trees and shrubs, with a possible followup for extremely resistant species; thereafter the shrubs assert control and the trees do not return. Dr. Egler has under observation shrub communities that have remained stable, without return of trees, for a quarter of a century after selective spraying. The spraying can often be done by men on foot, with knapsack sprayers, which give them complete control over their material. Sometimes tanks and compressor pumps can be mounted on truck chassis, but there is still no blanket spraying. The integrity of the environment is thereby preserved, the enormous value of the wildlife habitat remains intact, and the beauty of shrub and fern and the rest of the roadside growth has not been sacrificed. The method of vegetation management by selective spraying has been adopted by the authorities in some areas. All other considerations aside, when more taxpayers understand that the bill for spraying the town roads should come due only once a generation instead of once a year, they will surely rise up and demand a change of method.

The chemical pesticides are a bright new toy. They sometimes work in a spectacular way, giving those who wield them a giddy sense of power over nature, and as for the failures and the long-range undesirable effects, these are dismissed as the baseless imaginings of pessimists. Disregarding the whole record of contamination and death, we continue to spray, and to spray indiscriminately. We proceed as if there were no alternative, even though there are alternatives, such as biological controls and selective spraying, which have been effective in many places. As Dr. C. J. Briejèr, a Dutch scientist of rare understanding, has put it, “We are walking in nature like an elephant in the china cabinet.” ♦

(This is the first of a series of three articles.)