The Idea of a Garden

"The 'environment' is not, and has never been, a neutral, fixed backdrop; it is in fact alive, changing all the time in response to innumerable contingencies, one of these being the presence within it of the gardner. And that presence is neither good nor bad." (Pollan 607)

White speaks of the people that used to live at the mouth of the river and the effect they had on the environment. The environment has been "cultivated and coaxed by the many people who lived here before the first Europeans came up the river and built their houses, and fenced their land, and planted their daffodils." (12)

Both writers speak of the effect that people can have on nature. Nature is a constant in the world. As generations pass, nature more or less stays the same. But each passing generation can have an effect on it. And each succeeding generation can see the effect of the past. Nature, always remaining, will bear the marks of every generation, but it continues on forever.