{"id":591,"date":"2012-09-18T07:26:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T15:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=591"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:30","slug":"book-reveiw-why-every-man-needs-a-tractor-by-charles-elliott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/book-reveiw-why-every-man-needs-a-tractor-by-charles-elliott\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Why Every Man Needs a Tractor by Charles Elliott"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every quarter I receive a copy of the excellent English garden journal, <em>Hortus.<\/em>\u00a0 It is a serious publication, full of long-form articles about all aspects of gardening. \u00a0Its hallmarks include black and white drawings\u2014no glossy photos\u2014and high literary and horticultural standards. \u00a0To my knowledge, there is nothing quite like it published in the United States and it fills the ever-widening gap created by the shrinking pages and lack of content diversity in American gardening periodicals.<\/p>\n<p>Most issues of <em>Hortus <\/em>feature essays by Charles Elliott, a retired American book editor, now living in England. \u00a0I always turn to the Elliott essay the minute I open the journal and they never disappoint, combining erudite observations on a wide array of horticultural topics with a leavening dose of humor.<\/p>\n<p>Now some of those short pieces have been anthologized in <em>Why Every Man Needs a Tractor<\/em> (Frances Lincoln, 2011). \u00a0Elliot touches on the whimsical in his essay, \u201cImaginary Plants,\u201d exploring mythical botanical specimens that spring up everywhere, from the pages of H.G. Wells\u2019 novels to Edward Lear nonsense rhymes. \u00a0On the serious side, the author veers into the consequences of sacrificing science at the altar of ideology, exploring the tragedy of Nikolai Vavilov, the twentieth century Russian agronomist who lost his reputation (at least in the old Soviet Union) and ultimately his life because his espousal of modern genetic theories put him at odds with one of Stalin\u2019s most-favored courtiers, the \u201cbarefoot scientist\u201d Trofim Lysenko.<\/p>\n<p>Elliot deals with practical gardening as well, expounding on garden villains like Japanese knotweed and the Hessian fly; as well as subjects as diverse as plant names and seed germination. He ends the anthology with elegant musings on change and the aging of plants, garden structures and gardeners.<\/p>\n<p>Like the best books of garden essays, <em>Why Every Man Needs a Tractor<\/em> begs to be savored in small doses\u2014say one or two essays a night\u2014to prolong the pleasure. \u00a0Elliott\u2019s prose and perspective are tonics to the gardener\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every quarter I receive a copy of the excellent English garden journal, Hortus.\u00a0 It is a serious publication, full of long-form articles about all aspects of gardening. \u00a0Its hallmarks include black and white drawings\u2014no glossy photos\u2014and high literary and horticultural standards. \u00a0To my knowledge, there is nothing quite like it published in the United States &#8230; <a title=\"Book Review: Why Every Man Needs a Tractor by Charles Elliott\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/book-reveiw-why-every-man-needs-a-tractor-by-charles-elliott\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Book Review: Why Every Man Needs a Tractor by Charles Elliott\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[379,374,63,376,375,377,380,378],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","tag-aging-gardeners","tag-charles-elliott","tag-garden-essays","tag-garden-literature","tag-hortus","tag-lysenko","tag-time-in-the-garden","tag-vavilov"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1477,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/1477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}