When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like the pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet, whispering music that once you hear, you never forget.
Interpretation
This quote describes the unique and unforgettable sounds created by ripening wheat in the wind, likening it to nature's music.
Norman Borlaug's quote emphasizes the beauty and tranquility of nature, specifically focusing on the auditory experience of a wheat field in the wind. By comparing the sound of the wheat to the whispering music of pine needles, he highlights the deep connection humans can have with the natural world, suggesting that such moments of serenity leave a lasting impression on our memories.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of nature conservation.
During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago
We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life, we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing, and effective and compassionate medical care.
We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don't see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.
Nevertheless, the number of farmers, small as well as large, who are adopting the new seeds and new technology is increasing very rapidly, and the increase in numbers during the past three years has been phenomenal.
Africa needs roads. Roads bring know-how and fertilizer to farmers and ideas and business for commerce.
This is a basic problem, to feed 6.6 billion people. Without fertilizer, forget it. The game is over.
We Americans, in most states at least, have not yet experienced a bear-less, eagle-less, cat- less, wolf-less woods. Germany strove for maximum yields of both timber and game and got neither.
Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly well know whither, And rest I well know where.
The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.
A little child paddles a little boat, Drifting about, and picking white lotuses. He does not know how to hide his tracks, And duckweed's opened up along his path.
"What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle--it's just a web."_x000D_ _x000D_ "Ever try to spin one?" asked Mr. Dorian.
Our planetary system is affected by a magnitude of force as powerful as any naturally occurring global catastrophe, but one caused solely by a single species: us.
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