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F ifty-four years ago—Sept. 27,1962—a book was published thatwould change the world. Entitled

“Silent Spring” and written by a 55-year-oldemployee of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service(FWS) named Rachel Carson, it wouldbecome an instant best seller and an icon ofmodern environmentalism, its popularityfurther enhanced by the quiet and modestcharm of Ms. Carson herself. Yet, whileviewed as inaugurating the modern ecologyrevolution, neither it nor its author werewhat they seemed. Rather than an ecologistas many supposed, Carson described herselfas one whose “actual profession is writing.”And although her book was widely popularwith environmental activists, book criticsand general readers, it was roundly faultedby many leading biologists as flawed science.With the passage of time, the flaws of

“Silent Spring” have become even moreglaring. Rather than providing a betterunderstanding of nature, it spread igno-rance and fear, and indirectly caused thedeaths of millions of people. It also set thetemplate for a destructive new genre: theenvironmentalist scare book. By spreadingfear of death, it convinced the West to com-mit suicide.

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“A grim specter has crept upon us almostunnoticed.... What has already silenced thevoices of spring in countless towns acrossAmerica? This book is an attempt toexplain.” So promised Carson in the openingchapter of “Silent Spring.”The book shocked and galvanized the

nation, spreading widespread fear that ourenvironment was at risk. Almost instantly itconvinced the public that agribusiness,through indiscriminate use of syntheticchemicals, threatened all life on earth!Indeed, few books ever had such an

immediate, widespread and powerful impact.The drumbeat of its emotional warning ofthe dangers of pesticides began even before itspublication on Sept. 27, 1962. In June, theNew Yorker had serialized portions of it.Throughout the summer, newspapers ranstories on it. After publication it quickly

climbed the best-seller lists. The Book-of-the-Month Club made it the October selection. Itwas deluged with rave reviews. CBS Reportsdevoted two programs to it. Inspired by herbook, the Senate launched hearings on pesti-cides. When Carson died of cancer less thantwo years later, a nation mourned. Her funer-al would be held in the National Cathedraland prominent figures would be her pallbear-ers. Within 10 years, DDT would be banned.

■ ■ ■

The story of “Silent Spring” beganin 1957, when Carson learned thatsome of her wealthy and well-con-nected Long Island birder neigh-bors had filed suit against the U.S.

Department of Agriculture(USDA) to prevent planned spray-ing of DDT around their homesto fight Dutch elm disease andcontrol mosquitoes. Plaintiffsincluded Carson’s friends:ornithologist Robert CushmanMurphy; Marjorie Spock, daughter of thegeneral solicitor of the New York, NewHaven & Hartford Railroad and sister offamous pediatrician and author BenjaminSpock; Jane Nichols, daughter of financierJ.P. Morgan; and Archibald Roosevelt, son offormer president Theodore Roosevelt.Carson immediately began following the

progress of the suit, having been a deter-mined foe of DDT even before she knewmuch about it. Although DDT was firstinvented in 1874, it wasn’t until 1939 that its

pest-killing properties were discovered, andnot until World War II that it was first usedin that capacity. Its discoverer, Swiss chemistPaul Hermann Muller, would be awardedthe Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in1948, “for his discovery of the high efficiencyof DDT as a contact poison against severalanthropods.”Immediately after hearing of the Long

Island litigation, Carson jumped at the

opportunity to join the fight. Yet at the timeshe knew virtually nothing about pesticides.She wasn’t a researcher or scientist. Shehadn’t earned a doctorate or ever publishedin a peer-reviewed journal. She had workedher entire career as an editor of nature andenvironmental books and articles for theFWS. Her most popular works had beenabout the sea. As she described herself in1948, she was “a marine biologist whoseactual profession is writing rather than biol-ogy” and whose “consuming interest hap-

The Suicideof the WestRachel Carson Revisited: From “Silent Spring” to Zika.

By Alston Chase

“A grim specterhas crept upon us

almost unno-ticed....What hasalready silenced

the voices ofspring in countless

towns acrossAmerica? This

book is an attemptto explain.”

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pens to be the ocean and its life.”Rather than scientist or ecologist, Carson

was, above all, in temperament and disposi-tion, an environmental activist. She fitsquarely within the New England religioustradition devoted to an intense love ofnature. This love had drawn her to otherswho shared her passion—National AudubonSociety colleagues, editors and writers of theEast Coast literary establishment, affluentconservationists in and around New York,Washington, D.C., and Southport, Maine(where she summered), and scientiststhroughout the country with whom shebecame acquainted in the course of her edit-ing and writing career.Once committed to write on pesticides,

therefore, Carson had a problem: She knewthat given her lack of credentials in this fieldshe needed help. And as she planned fromthe outset to write a brief against their use,she relied heavily on material supplied by theplaintiffs in the Long Island suit. She askedand received background material fromSpock, who in return asked her to testify atthe trial. Once the trial was in progress, sheobtained the trial transcript.Having decided at the outset that her

book would be a polemic against pesticides,yet lacking knowledge of the science, Carsonsought out scholars who could help makeher case. And as it happened, several of thosemost willing to do so were leftist ecologistswith ideological axes to grind: socialist andcommunist scientists who saw pesticides as aplatform for criticizing capitalism.Among them was a brilliant American

geneticist named Hermann J. Muller. A fer-vent communist, he had gone to the SovietUnion in 1933, where he supervised a largegenetics laboratory for the purpose of taking“conscious control of human biological evo-lution” to create a new race of socialist super-men, promising Soviet Premier Josef Stalinthat “it will be possible within only a fewgenerations to bestow the title of so-called‘genius’ upon practically every individual inthe population—in fact, to raise all the mass-es to the level at which now stand our mostgifted individuals.”Unfortunately for Muller, however, he fell

out of favor with Stalin. Fearing for his life, hedeparted Russia and ultimately returned toAmerica, where he joined the faculty of theUniversity of Texas. While there, and still acommunist, he was awarded the Nobel Prizefor his discovery that radiation from atomicfallout caused genetic mutations, and he

would use this fame as a pulpit from which topreach against American nuclear weapons.Muller’s discovery of the mutagenic

effects of radiation would form the heart ofCarson’s critique. Speaking at a meeting ofthe National Council of Women after thebook’s publication, Carson, apparentlyunaware of Muller’s attempt to use geneticsto “change the course of history” for Stalin,announced her profound debt to him for

showing that “exposing organisms to radia-tion could produce those sudden changes inhereditary characteristics that biologists callmutations” and thus “change the course ofheredity.”With that, Carson had her argument.

Pesticides, she concluded, were “mutagens”that could trigger genetic mutations thatmight lead to cancer. When let loose on thelandscape, the effect would be far morepowerful than hitherto thought, thanks totwo biological processes called biologicalaccumulation and biological magnifica-tion. The first refers to the supposition thatonce ingested, these mutagens graduallyaccumulated in the body; and the secondto the idea that they become increasinglyconcentrated as they pass up the foodchain from prey to predator, so that carni-vores at the top, like birds of prey, can beingesting dangerous doses even while con-suming little directly themselves.

■ ■ ■

By the time “Silent Spring” was published,therefore, it was a polemic with no pretenseof scientific objectivity, but solely intended topillory capitalism and the chemical industry.It painted a stark picture where foresters,farmers and public officials, abetted by aconspiracy orchestrated by a chemical indus-try motivated by profit and indifferent toconsequences, saturated the world with poi-son, killing wildlife, spreading cancer, andputting everyone at risk. Aerial spraying wascausing a “rain of death” across the country.Thanks to biological accumulation, “theaverage person is storing potentially harmfulamounts” of pesticides within their bodies.“Modern insecticides (like DDT) are stillmore deadly” than arsenic. Herbicides are asdeadly as radiation. “Indiscriminate” spray-ing was “killing birds, mammals, fishes, andindeed practically every form of wildlife.”Yet while this frightening hyperbole and

accompanying media hype had its intendedeffect on the general public, many of thosewho knew the science were less gullible. TheNew York Times science writer complainedthat Carson “tries to scare the living day-

lights out of us.” The reviewerfor Scientific American lamentedthat “what I interpret as biasand oversimplification may bejust what it takes to write a bestseller.” I.L. Baldwin, formerchair of a National Academy ofSciences committee on theeffects of DDT on wildlife and

professor of agricultural bacteriology at theUniversity of Wisconsin, writing in thejournal Science, suggested that “SilentSpring,” rather than being scientific, was “aprosecuting attorney’s impassioned plea foraction.” Rather than a “chemical death rain”spreading across the country, as Carsonclaimed, he added, “actually less than fivepercent of all the area of the United States isannually treated with insecticides.”

TIMEmagazine noted, “Miss Carson hastaken up her pen in alarm and anger, puttingliterary skill second to the task of frighteningand arousing her readers.” And science writerEdwin Diamond, reviewing “Silent Spring”in the Saturday Evening Post, used wordssuch as “attention-getting,” “exaggeration,”“hyperbolic” and “paranoid” to describe thebook. Diamond reminded his readers thataccording to President Kennedy’s ScienceAdvisory Panel, “deaths from the misuse ofpesticides have numbered about 150

Rachel Carson’s book was so popular inthe 1960s, she got a stamp. Sadly, herdetermination to ban DDT caused thedeath of millions of people and set thetemplate for a destructive new genre: the environmentalist scare book. Theproblem was that DDT was a good thing.

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throughout the United States”—fewer thandied from overdoses of aspirin each year!

■ ■ ■

Over time, the legion of expert critics contin-ued to grow. In a landmark 1992 essay, “TheLies of Rachel Carson,” the distinguishedentomologist J. Gordon Edwards, after find-ing several apparently intentional deceptionsin the book, called her a “fraud.”

“Ms. Carson used dubious statistics andanecdotes...to warn of a cancer epidemic thatnever came to pass,” science writer John Tier-ney wrote in the New York Times in 1997.“She wildly imagined a mass ‘biocide.’ Shewarned that one of the most commonAmerican birds, the robin, was ‘on the vergeof extinction,’ an especially oddclaim given the large numbers ofrobins recorded in Audubonbird counts just before her bookwas published.

“Metabolism and break-down of DDT in humans andother vertebrates, and theirexcretion in urine...prevent the alleged ‘bio-logical magnification’ up food chains fromactually occurring.” Likewise, “there has beenno medical indication that trace amounts ofDDT in the diet are harmful.” And herremark that the “average person is storingpotentially harmful amounts” of DDT was“absolutely false”!

In 1994, the late University of California,Berkeley professor Aaron Wildavsky report-ed that successive studies had found DDTharmless to humans, even in massive doses.Nor, he noted, had researchers found DDTharmful to songbirds, although they did findevidence “DDT can be toxic and causereproductive problems” in other bird species,especially raptors.

But the most devastating critique camefrom Bruce Ames, professor of biochemistryand molecular biology at the University ofCalifornia and famous inventor of the AmesTest, a system for detecting the relativemutagenicity, or cancer-causing potential, oforganic compounds. In a landmark 1987article in Science magazine, Ames reportedthat, after exhaustive studies, he found thatthe natural foods we eat carry far greatercarcinogenic risk than man-made pesti-cides. All plants, he explained, make theirown pesticide as protection against naturalenemies, and we consume 10,000 times asmany of these natural carcinogens than syn-thetic ones. Moreover, the pesticides in somefoods are far more powerful than man-

made pesticides. The chances of getting can-cer from peanut butter (which carries a nat-ural cancer-causing substance calledaflatoxin), Ames noted, are far greater thanconsuming foods tainted with dioxin, amuch feared synthetic chemical.

And this supposition, that syntheticchemicals are more dangerous than naturalones, Ames wrote in 1993, was Carson’sgreatest mistake. Her claim that “for the firsttime in the history of the world, everyhuman being is now subject to contact withdangerous chemicals, from the moment ofconception until death,” was, he says, “non-sense...99.9 percent of the chemicals humansingest are natural...99.99 percent of the pesti-

cides humans eat are natural pesticides pro-duced by plants to kill off predators.”

■ ■ ■

In sum, “Silent Spring” had exaggerated vir-tually every one of its direst claims, and wasdownright wrong about those that countedmost. DDT’s threat to birds was vastly exag-gerated. There is no evidence DDT causedcancer in humans. Indeed, according to theU.S. National Academy of Sciences, beforethe chemical was banned, by killing mosqui-toes DDT had saved 500 million lives—more than any other chemical compound inhistory. Carson’s supposition that syntheticchemicals are more risky than natural oneswas wildly mistaken, something she shouldhave known because she was aware of theexistence of natural pesticides, althoughbelittling their effects.

But however right “Silent Spring’s” criticsmay have been, few paid attention to them.Many readers undoubtedly were swayed bythe passion and sincerity of its author. Butthe great majority was simply moved by theexplosive power of the book’s main mes-sage—a message that resonated to the deep-est level of the western heart: that man wasdestroying the Earth! It conjured echoes ofancient mythologies and religions; of a timewhen the world had been perfect untilhuman arrogance and avarice destroyed it; ofthe golden age of Greek mythology; ofPrometheus, punished for stealing the secretsof the Gods; and of the Garden of Eden,

where Adam and Eve lost their innocence.In the end, the impact of this mytholog-

ical and religious fervor forced the advo-cates of DDT to capitulate. In 1972, itwould be banned in America, and soonafter its use in other countries severelyrestricted. The dramatic, silently risingdeath toll from malaria and other tropicaldiseases would become mute testament tothe killing power of religion and myth tosuppress the voice of science.

■ ■ ■

Ever since science first began its breathtakingrace of discovery in the 16th century, a peri-od known as the Renaissance, its phenome-nal progress was driven and sustained not

only by continual empirical test-ing and experimentation, butalso by what Rene Descartes, oneof the great philosopher/scien-tists of this era, would call “themethod of doubt.” And whileothers called it by differentnames, such skepticism is still the

secret of science’s success. According to thisrule, every hypothesis or theory must beconsidered tentative—proposed with theunderstanding that some future evidence orexperiment might prove it false.

Only by trying and failing to find flawsin a hypothesis could scientists have confi-dence it might be true. Even if it passes testafter test, it would be deemed merely con-firmed, not proven. For science must alwaysconsider the possibility that some later testmight find it false.

It was this adherence to the principles ofempiricism and skepticism that allowed sci-entists to draw a bright line between scienceand religion. In 1945, the English philoso-pher Karl Popper would call it the “falsifiabil-ity principle”—the rule that “it must bepossible for an empirical scientific system tobe refuted by experience”—otherwise itwasn’t science but religion or philosophy.

As Popper explained, facts confirm atheory only “if we have tried, and failed, todiscover refutations. For if we are uncriti-cal...we shall look away from, and not see,whatever might be dangerous to our pettheories.” Thus, he wrote, it is “the possibili-ty of overthrowing [an hypothesis], or itsfalsifiability, that constitutes the possibilityof testing it, and therefore the scientificcharacter of a theory...this view of scientificmethod is corroborated by the history ofscience, which shows that scientific theoriesare often overthrown by experiments, and

With one fell swoop, Carson had convertedthe country to radical environmentalism.

Combining ancient mythology with religious pantheism, she ignited a

movement that could not be stopped.

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that the overthrow of theories is indeed thevehicle of scientific progress.”

■ ■ ■

Unfortunately, however, this was not RachelCarson’s method. What characterized herswas its religious certainty. Rather thanremaining in the mainstream of modern sci-entific tradition, modestly couching scientificclaims as tentative and always open to ques-tion, Carson declared her opinions as certain,and doubters to be either evil or ignorant.She therefore missed a golden opportunity toteach readers what mainstream science reallywas, a discipline that sociologist Robert K.Merton defined as “organized skepticism,”and a former Princeton professor of mine,Earnest Nagel, described as “the persistentcritique of arguments.”Rather than writing a scientific book,

Carson, however well-meaning, had createdthe template for a decidedly unscientificgenre: the environmental scare book. As aliterary form it would feature exaggerations,half-truths, attacks on the motivations ofdoubters, and dire predictions based on lit-tle or no evidence or shaky citations. For theaim of such scare books was not to engagein scientific debate. It would be, rather, toprevail in the court of public opinion beforethe results of genuine science might disprove it,by presenting simple arguments easilyhyped by media to scare the public silly, andby this to provoke governments to take pre-mature action.

■ ■ ■

In this way, Carson had cast the mold. Fol-lowing “Silent Spring” would come anavalanche of books by other authors, allclaiming infallibility and intending to spreadfear. Some, like “Silent Spring,” preachedchemophobia and hyped the dangers ofevery synthetic chemical from Alar to sac-charin. Others warned of environmental col-lapse (whatever that means). And whilemany of these predictions raised scientificissues worthy of investigation, none present-ed their theses as debatable. Like “SilentSpring,” their most obvious feature was theirreligious certainty.Thus, Paul R. Ehrlich’s 1968 best seller,

“The Population Bomb,” would predictworldwide famine and food riots in Americaby 1980. In 1970, the Club of Rome’s “Limitsto Growth” would warn that exponentialpopulation growth and human activitythreatened to trigger worldwide ecologicalcatastrophe. And often from 1974 onward,Lester R. Brown’s Worldwatch Institute

would reiterate its theme that global faminelay just around the corner.As with Carson’s predictions, almost

none came true, but few environmentalistsseemed to notice or care. Rather, they justdoubled down on their pessimism. Apoca-lyptic warnings multiplied: World agricultur-al production continued to rise, not fall. Alarand saccharin posed only infinitesimal risks.The ozone layer didn’t disappear. Despite anexhaustive study the International Union forthe Conservation of Nature found no evi-dence of an “extinction crisis.” Americanforests were more extensive than when the

Pilgrims landed, acid rain vastly overblown.Yet, by the time scientific studies exposingthese false predictions were completed, theenvironmentalists had already claimed victo-ry and moved on to the next political cam-paign. And when a phony disaster they hadpredicted failed to happen, the media simplygave them credit for preventing it.In this way, politics always remained a

step ahead of science, and even the failure oftheir dire predictions had little negativeimpact on the doomsayers’ reputations.Instead, true believers would say, as they hadabout Carson, that truth didn’t matter. It wasmore important, they argued, to frightenpeople into doing “the right thing.” Govern-ment, they urged, should heed all their apoc-alyptic warnings “to be on the safe side.”Eventually they would formalize this spe-

cious reasoning as the “precautionary princi-ple” without considering whether thepolicies they inspired, which had beendesigned to avert fictitious “threats,” mightdo more harm than good.

■ ■ ■

Meanwhile, prompted by these scares, public

monies poured into environmental researchas federal and state agencies, research organi-zations, and advocacy groups found spread-ing fear to be a cash cow to grow theirbudgets. Colleges introduced courses in ecol-ogy and private foundations inauguratedgrants’ programs designed to promote thescience.Meanwhile, the demographic composi-

tion of the environmental movement waschanging. Whereas earlier in the centuryorganizations such as Save the RedwoodsLeague and the National Wildlife Federationhad been led by businessmen and -women

who looked to private enter-prise for conservation support,by the 1960s they had beeneclipsed by organizations suchas the Wilderness Society andSierra Club, which appealed toprofessionals of the BabyBoom generation—attorneys,schoolteachers and other pub-lic employees.These younger activists

looked to government for landacquisition and protection sothey could focus on lobbying,litigation and the orchestra-tion of media campaignsdesigned to raise public con-sciousness about new issues.

In this way, an incestuous template for envi-ronmental advocacy emerged: Governmentand university ecologists, often members ofenvironmental groups themselves, plantedthe seeds of the next scare, allowing theactivist organizations to map a campaignand feed story lines to journalists who, notcoincidentally, were members of the move-ment themselves.

■ ■ ■

So it would be with DDT. With one fellswoop, Carson had converted the country toradical environmentalism. Combiningancient mythology with religious pantheism,she ignited a movement that could not bestopped. Environmentalism became the newnational religion and ecology the handmaid-en of its theology. The seeds of fear of eco -catastrophe had been planted. Apseudo scientific infrastructure was in placeand new alliances born, linking government,environmentalists and the media. The era ofstate science had arrived. Public moniespoured into environmental research, feedingthe growth of universities and governmentagencies and transforming them. A new

The dramatic, silently rising death toll from malaria and other tropical diseases

would become mute testament to the killing power of religion and myth to

suppress the voice of science.

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infrastructure emerged linking these institu-tions with the media and activists, forgingnew templates for political action directed byenvironmentalists, funded by government,supported by universities, and hyped by themedia.Political battlefields would shift from

wilderness, pesticidesand endangered speciesto global climate; statepower would reach forthe stratosphere; com-puter modelers wouldreject empirical data infavor of virtual reality;new dogmas woulddenounce western civi-lization and redefine themeaning of liberty. Andthe missionaries of thenew theocratic visionwould continue to honetactics for acquiringpower through spreading fear, one step at atime, until they were ready to launch theirfinal assault, over global warming.

■ ■ ■

In 1959, about the time Carson was complet-ing the manuscript of “Silent Spring,” I was astudent at Oxford University. While there, Ihad the great good fortune to attend lecturesby a famous historian named Isaiah Berlin.The subject was liberty. Of the many wisethings he said, one sentence especially standsout in memory. “The logical culmination ofthe process of destroying everythingthrough which I can possibly be wounded,”he warned, “is suicide.” Although he said this before “Silent

Spring” had been published, his words couldstand as Rachel Carson’s epitaph, and whyshe continues to haunt. Simply put, the bookreflects an obsessive fear of death, and that is driving the West to the brink of suicide. Of course, we don’t know what is going

to happen. Perhaps the end will come soonerthan we think in the form of a mosquito-borne virus like Zika, an organism DDT per-haps could have stopped but currentpesticides apparently cannot. Already Zika’svirulence is prompting calls to bring backDDT. But as Jeffrey Scott, professor of ento-mology at Cornell University, said in a recentinterview, while DDT has “unquestionablysaved millions and millions” of lives aroundthe world, “I don’t think anybody would sur-vive the political fallout of trying to bring thisback. It’s got religious zeal to it in some

camps...we’ll all be long dead before DDT isever used again.”Returning to the pre-Rachel Carson era

almost certainly won’t happen, as environ-mentalist zealotry still trumps sound sci-ence. Rather, we’ve reached the beginning ofthe end, the inevitable conclusion of “Silent

Spring’s” rejection of thescientific method ofdoubt. Recently, severalenvironmental groups,frustrated that their scaretactics hadn’t changedthe minds of sufficientnumbers of “global-warming deniers,” andhaving failed to learn thatskepticism is the key-stone of sound science,formed an alliance with17 state attorneys generalto bring criminal chargesagainst dissidents. [See

page 14] And while it appears to be fizzlingout, we’ve probably not seen the last of suchtotalitarianism. Extremist ideas are likeweeds: once introduced, they grow and growand never die. Just so, when government starts putting

skeptics in jail, it won’t stop until hell freezesover. ■

A former college professor specializing in thehistory and methodology of science, AlstonChase holds degrees from Harvard, Oxfordand Princeton and has written widely onenvironmental issues. During the course of hisdistinguished career, he has lectured at Har-vard, Yale and several other universities andserved as a consultant to the National ScienceFoundation, National Endowment for theHumanities, and various private philan-thropies. His 1986 book, “Playing God in Yel-lowstone,” was featured on the cover ofNewsweek and has become a modern environ-mental classic.

His 1995 book, “In a Dark Wood: TheFight over Forests and the Myths of Nature,”was described by the New York Times BookReview as “a gripping story...an uncommonlyastute analysis of a movement [and] a sur-passingly careful effort to understand and givecontext to a great political drama that has noheroes and many casualties.” A 1999 RandomHouse readers’ survey rated it one of the 100most important nonfiction books published inthe English language in the 20th century.

Alston and Diana, his wife of 52 years, livein Paradise Valley, Mont. They have twogrown sons.

The missionaries ofthe new theocratic

vision would continueto hone tactics foracquiring power

through spreadingfear, one step at a

time, until they wereready to launch their

final assault, overglobal warming.

Thank you much for your great magazine.We as readers mourn the passing of TimFindley, and it must be much worse for youwho knew him, but I’m sure I’m not the onlyone who is impressed at the way you havekept the quality of your reporting up withouthis genius. God bless you and keep it up. CLARK T. CARTER, MONETTA, S.C.

Enjoy the mag so much. WAYNEW. MCKEE, INDIANOLA, IOWA

TIGHT GRIPWhat seems to be happening is that the feds,by monumentalizing more and more land,are just tightening their grip on federal landto where the states will never ever get a gripon any of those lands. Nor will the feds beexpanding the monumented land uses intomining, drilling, forestry, grazing—EVER!HUGO VON PLATEN LUDERHOLUALOA, HAWAII

The listing of vendors carrying RANGE inKlamath Falls, Ore., needs to be updated. BigR Stores was bought out by Coastal Farm &Ranch which no longer carries RANGE.Here’s their info: CF&R, 6225 S. 6th St., Kla-math Falls, OR 97603. Phone 541-882-5548.JONNE GOELLER, KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON

Many stores only carry RANGE if it is request-ed by its customers. Hope you can help get theseagents back.—Ed.

I know that all of us RANGE lovers dependon each other, but without your never-tiring

LETTERS(Continued from page 28)

(Continued on page 69)

Jay 2 (born Jan. 2!) Hoggan from Hamer, Idaho,gives grain to the team, Rita and Mindy (thenames of Jay 2’s sisters). They pull from 3-5 loadsof hay on a sled through a foot of snow every day.

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