A review by caroparr
One Man's Meat by E.B. White

4.0

Essays first published between 1938 and 1944 interpose musings about war and patriotism with notes on daily farm chores. For example:

The passionate love of Americans for their America will have a lot to do with winning the war. It is an odd thing though: the very patriotism on which we now rely is the thing that must eventually be in part relinquished if the world is ever to find a lasting peace and an end to these butcheries...Yet all the time I know that this very loyalty,
this feeling of being part of a special place, this respect for one's native scene--I know that such emotions have had a big part in the world's wars. Who is there big enough to love the whole planet? We must find such people for the next society.

And some gorgeous descriptions of the natural world, this from an evening spent training a puppy to tree a raccoon:

After midnight we moved into easier country about ten miles away. Here the going was better--old fields and orchards, where the little wild apples lay in thick clusters under the trees. Old stone walls ran into the woods, and now and then there would be an empty barn as a ghostly landmark. The night grew frosty and the ground underfoot was slippery with rime. The bare birches wore the stars on their fingers, and the world rolled seductively, a dark symphony of brooding groves and plains. Things had gone well, and everyone was content just to be out in the small hours, following the musical directions of a wise and busy dog.