Excerpted
from Rachel
Carson’s ground-breaking
Silent Spring,
written in 1962, which issued
a dire warning
of what might happen if the
reckless use of pesticides
continued.
Some of this has
come to pass; for the rest
we would do well to heed
her words. |
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There was once a town in the heart
of America where all life seemed
to live 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.
Along the roads laurel, viburnum
and alder, great ferns and wildflowers
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 streams flowed clear and
cold out of the hills and contained
shady pools where trout lay…
Then 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; the
cattle and sheep sickened and died.
Everywhere was a shadow of death.
The farmers spoke of much illness
among their families. In the town
the doctors had become more and more
puzzled by new kinds of sickness
appearing among their patients. There
had been several sudden and unexplained
deaths, not only among adults but
even among children, who would be
stricken suddenly while at play and
die within a few hours.
There was a strange stillness. The
birds, for example – where had they
gone? Many people spoke of them,
puzzled and disturbed. The feeding
stations in the backyards were deserted.
The few birds seen anywhere were
moribund; they trembled violently
and could not fly. It was a spring
without voices. On the mornings that
had once throbbed with the dawn chorus
of robins, catbirds, doves, jays,
wrens and scores of other bird voices
there were now no sound; only silence
lay over the fields and woods and
marsh.
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, once so attractive,
were now lined with brown and withered
vegetation as though swept by fire.
These, too, were silent, deserted
by all living things. Even the streams
were now 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 white granular powder still showed
a few patches: some weeks before
it had fallen like snow upon the
roofs and the lawns, the fields and
the streams.
No witchcraft, no enemy action had
silenced the rebirth of new life
in this stricken world. The people
had done it themselves.
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