The Holy Earth — Reading Companion

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In Category - Ethics

Authors: Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde), 1858-1954 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2010 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Country life; Nature; Natural resources; Earth (Planet); Conservation of natural resources Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 40,791

Reading time 178 min

Text sections 4

The Holy Earth — Reading Companion can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 40,791 words, 2 hr 58 min estimated reading time, and 4 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 24.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Country life,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #33178

Bailey argues for a reverent, responsible relationship with the land, grounding ethics in the tangible processes of farming and daily sustenance. Drawing on Thomas Tusser's 16th-century verse, he contrasts the 'husbandly fare' of self-sufficient households with modern reliance on packaged goods, urging readers to recover a conscious, seasonal connection to the earth.

Editorial Edition Score 4.6/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg33178

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Produced by Bryan Ness, Asad Razzaki and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.)

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1916

Published September, 1915

First, The Statement: Pages 1-16

Second, The Consequences: Pages 17-171

The habit of destruction 18

The brotherhood relation 30

The farmer's relation 32

The underlying training of a people 39

The neighbor's access to the earth 42

The subdividing of the land 48

The public program 61

The honest day's work 66

The group reaction 70

The spiritual contact with nature 75

The struggle for existence: war 80

The admiration of good materials 103

The keeping of the beautiful earth 115

The tones of industry 120

The threatened literature 124

The separate soul 130

The element of separateness in society 136

The democratic basis in agriculture 139

The background spaces.--The forest 150

A forest background for a reformatory 156

The background spaces.--The open fields 164

The background spaces.--The ancestral sea 167

So bountiful hath been the earth and so securely have we drawn from it our substance, that we have taken it all for granted as if it were only a gift, and with little care or conscious thought of the consequences of our use of it; nor have we very much considered the essential relation that we bear to it as living parts in the vast creation.

It is good to think of ourselves--of this teeming, tense, and aspiring human race--as a helpful and contributing part in the plan of a cosmos, and as participators in some far-reaching destiny. The idea of responsibility is much asserted of late, but we relate it mostly to the attitude of persons in the realm of conventional conduct, which we have come to regard as very exclusively the realm of morals; and we have established certain formalities that satisfy the conscience. But there is some deeper relation than all this, which we must recognize and the consequences of which we must practise. There is a directer and more personal obligation than that which expends itself in loyalty to the manifold organizations and social requirements of the present day. There is a more fundamental co-operation in the scheme of things than that which deals with the proprieties or which centres about the selfishness too often expressed in the salvation of one's soul.

We can be only onlookers on that part of the cosmos that we call the far heavens, but it is possible to co-operate in the processes on the surface of the sphere. This co-operation may be conscious and definite, and also useful to the earth; that is, it may be real. What means this contact with our natural situation, this relationship to the earth to which we are born, and what signify this new exploration and conquest of the planet and these accumulating prophecies of science? Does the mothership of the earth have any real meaning to us?

All this does not imply a relation only with material and physical things, nor any effort to substitute a nature religion. Our relation with the planet must be raised into the realm of spirit; we cannot be fully useful otherwise. We must find a way to maintain the emotions in the abounding commercial civilization. There are two kinds of materials,--those of the native earth and the idols of one's hands. The latter are much in evidence in modern life, with the conquests of engineering, mechanics, architecture, and all the rest. We visualize them everywhere, and particularly in the great centres of population. The tendency is to be removed farther and farther from the everlasting backgrounds. Our religion is detached.

We come out of the earth and we have a right to the use of the materials; and there is no danger of crass materialism if we recognize the original materials as divine and if we understand our proper relation to the creation, for then will gross selfishness in the use of them be removed. This will necessarily mean a better conception of property and of one's obligation in the use of it. We shall conceive of the earth, which is the common habitation, as inviolable. One does not act rightly toward one's fellows if one does not know how to act rightly toward the earth.

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Bailey opens The Holy Earth by asserting that humanity has taken the earth's bounty for granted, treating it as a mere gift rather than a sacred trust. He calls for a 'directer and more personal obligation' beyond conventional morality—a conscious co-operation with the planet's processes. The book's structure, divided into 'The Statement' and 'The Consequences,' signals a systematic argument: first establishing the earth's inherent goodness and holiness, then exploring the practical and spiritual implications of that belief.

The Earth as a Moral Partner

Bailey rejects the notion that moral responsibility is confined to human social conduct. Instead, he posits a 'deeper relation' that binds us to the natural world. The earth is not inert matter but a 'mothership' with which we can co-operate. This partnership is not abstract; it is realized through farming, eating, and the daily use of land. Bailey's language—'helpful and contributing part in the plan of a cosmos'—frames ecological action as participation in a cosmic order, not merely resource management.

The Lost Art of Husbandly Fare

A striking feature of the text is Bailey's use of Thomas Tusser's 16th-century poem to illustrate a pre-industrial ideal. He quotes Tusser's list of Christmas provisions—'Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best'—and notes that these foods 'cost a husbandman never a penny.' For Bailey, this represents a direct, reverent relationship with the land: the produce carries 'all the days in them, the sunshine, the rain, the dew of morning.' He contrasts this with modern consumption from 'the box and the bottle and the tin-can,' where the origin of food is unknown and the seasonal cycle is ignored. The critique is not nostalgic but moral: losing contact with the earth's processes leads to irreverence and mechanical living.

A Call for Conscious Celebration

Bailey proposes a practical remedy: reorienting festivals like Christmas toward the land's bounty. He asks, 'May we not once in the year remember the earth in the food that we eat?' This is not a return to Tusser's exact diet but a 'new attitude toward the table fare' that reduces manufactured goods and restores a sense of place and season. The farmer who knows his fields, hedges, and rotations experiences a 'religion' of keeping the land well. Bailey extends this to all readers, even urban ones, urging them to organize celebrations that honor the 'goodness of the land.' The tone is direct and hortatory, grounded in the concrete detail of a Christmas menu.

Bailey's argument is most compelling when it moves from principle to practice, as in the Tusser passages. Readers should attend to how he uses historical examples not as blueprints but as provocations to rethink daily habits. The book's ethical framework is less about abstract duties than about recovering a felt connection to the earth through the ordinary acts of producing and consuming food.

Sometimes I think Bailey’s husbandly fare isn’t so far from what those older voices meant, the quiet rhythm of tending and being tended. Reading him, I remember that even restless spirits—like the one in Revolted Woman: Past, present, and to come — Background and Themes—are still rooted, still reaching toward some soil of their own.