Research Catalog

Title

Wisdom of the last farmer : harvesting legacies from the land / David Mas Masumoto.

Author

Masumoto, David Mas

Publication

New York : Free Press, 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 238 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

In this memoir, the author finds the natural connections between generation and succession, fathers and children, booms and declines as he tells the story of his family and their farm. He sees the price the family has paid to grow complex heirloom peaches--when the market rewards tasteless, big, and red fruits--and the challenges of maintaining traditions and integrity while working in the modern, high-pressure agricultural marketplace. As his father's health declines along with the profitability of the family farm, the author moves beyond economic concerns to questions of life, death, and renewal.

Alternative Title

Harvesting legacies from the land

Subject

• Masumoto, David Mas
• Peach growers > California > Biography
• Organic farmers > California > Biography
• Farm life > California

Genre/Form

• collective biographies.
• Biographies
• Biographies.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Family heirloom -- The price of perfection -- Second sons -- The last orchard -- Calling your father a weed -- Living with insults -- Resilience -- Learning to lean, walking on uneven ground -- Shoveling sand -- Back in the saddle again -- Season of dirt -- Perfect junk -- The art of going slow : French plowing -- Hardpan economics -- Falling down -- Welding -- Killing an orchard to save the farm -- The sweat thesis -- The hands of caregivers -- Farming with ghosts -- Missing stories -- Fields of gold -- Places where we belong -- How many harvests left? -- Coming home -- Names we wear -- Abandoning a vineyard -- Preservation -- Day is done.

ISBN

• 9781416599302
• 1416599304

LCCN

• ^^2009008229
• 40017005059

OCLC

• 233544975
• SCSB-11725850

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library