3 - The Green Revolution

Summary

Terra, la tua virtute

Non è del Mondo, e da la gente intesa;

Che d'ignoranza offesa

Segue suo danno, e fugge sua salute.

Ma, se tue lode faran conosciute

d'altrui, come da me; per cui risplende

D'essa virtute un raggio:

St'util Ricordo, e saggio

Prenderà 'l Mondo tosto: che se 'l prende,

Ritorneran con la prima bontade

Gli anni de l'oro, e la felice estade.

Camillo Tarello, 1567

Earth, thy virtue

Is not understood by this world, nor by people

Who, afflicted by ignorance

Pursue their undoing and flee their salvation.

But if thy praises were known

By others, as by me, for whom a ray

Of this virtue shines:

Be useful, Memoir, and wise,

Seize the world forthwith: for if it accept thee

The golden age will return,

With the first abundance and happy summers.

SAND DRIFT IS ARRESTED

The first area in which action had to be taken if the Danish community's headlong course towards an ecological catastrophe was to be averted was to prevent ever greater parts of the country from being converted into desert. Sand drift had been causing concern ever since the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the various decrees, already mentioned, prohibiting the rooting up of lyme grass and marram grass on the west coast of Jutland. These regulations were later included in the Danish Law of 1683 (Book 6, Ch. 17, §29), but not much else was done. Locally, farmers made considerable efforts to stop sand drift by building wattle fences and planting lyme grass, but these had little effect. In the course of the seventeenth century, the situation was continually aggravated, especially in North Jutland and North Zealand.