Buy the ‘Acme Woods,’
Then Leave Them Be
Thank you for your wonderful paper, without which we would all be much less knowledgeable. I was so glad to see the May 10 piece “WW to Buy Woods,” referring to plans to purchase the former Acme Woods.
In the vein of enjoying the outstanding natural beauty of our area, does it not seem odd that the streets are clogged with landscape trailers? That speeding, highly maneuverable, tractors thunder back and forth spewing half burned middle-east oil into the air? These mechanical beasts, seemingly out of a war movie, frighten most of the populace back indoors. They are inevitably accompanied by foot soldiers wearing ear and eye protection. Some sweep huge torrents of air powered by their roaring backpack engines. Others sweep spinning nylon stings of destruction from which no errant wildflower or seedling can escape.
At day’s end, when the silence of evening comes, a few venture out to find one of the most fecund ecosystems on the planet transformed into a corporate office park, a plastic fantastic scene of artificiality propped up by herbicide, insecticide, and oil-based ground-water polluting fertilizer incompatible with flowers, birds, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, chipmunks, rabbits, children, or old men.
Think of the benefits to us all if we could collectively steer the culture toward a less intensively artificial environment, both in our private and our public spaces.
My congratulations to the town for its wise leadership in purchasing the woods. And, except for the woodchip path to the train, may they be wise enough to leave it largely untouched!
Henry B. Murphy
Hereford Drive, Princeton Jct.
