b'we are still exactly as dependent on the earth as earthworms. To cease to know this, and to fail to act upon the knowledge, is to begin to die the death of a broken machine. In default of mans personal cherishing and care, now that his machinery has become so awesomely powerful, the earth must become the victim of his institutions, the violent self-destructive machinery of man-in-the-abstract. And so, conversely, the most meaningful dependence of the earth is not on the U.S. government, but on my householdhow I live, how I raise my children, how I care for the land entrusted to me.Berry is a different kind of investor. He has invested himself, over a lifetime, in the most direct and personal of ways, in the place where he lives, in his land. Few of us are able to follow his example directly. Or that of Eliot Coleman (Four Season Farm, Harborside, Maine), Zo Bradbury (Valley Flora Farm, Langlois, Oregon), Will Harris (White Oak Pastures, Bluffton, Georgia), Joel Salatin (Polyface Farm, Swoope, Virginia), Jack and Anne Lazor (Butterworks Farm, Westfield, Vermont), Narendra Varma (Our Table Cooperative, Sherwood, Oregon), Jason Griffith and Erin Dreistadt (Aspen Moon Farm, Hygiene, Colorado), Paul Muller and Dru Rivers and partners (Full Belly Farm, Capay Valley, California), Jones Farm Organics(Hooper, Colorado), the James Family (James Ranch, Durango, Colorado), Rose and Brook LeVan (Sustainable Settings, Carbondale, Colorado) and. . .far, far too many other wonderful souls to mention here. (Note: The farms just mentioned range in size from a dozen acres and a few hundred thousand dollars a year to a few thousand acres and a few tens of millions of dollars a year. Most would not consider the latter to be small, but sometimes rigid adherence to a precise definition of small-ness is. . .small-minded.) 16'