Nature's Management: Writings on Landscape and Reform, 1822-1859.

By Edmund Ruffin. Edited with an introduction by Jack Temple Kirby. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, c. 2000. Pp. xxxii, 375. $70.00, ISBN 0-8203-2162-1.)

Although it is hard to determine the focus of this volume from its title, Jack Kirby has provided a useful reference tool for scholars interested in the agricultural reform efforts of Edmund Ruffin. Better known for his defense of states' rights and the "peculiar institution," Ruffin's efforts to study and improve southern agriculture were noteworthy contributions for their time and have earned his reputation more enduring respect than his racist ideology and politics. Kirby's fine introduction establishes the context for Ruffin's agricultural writings, and the remainder of the book contains an edited selection of Ruffin's writings, most of which appeared while he served as publisher of the Farmers' Register between 1833 and 1842. The volume nicely complements previously published documents of Ruffin's, such as An Essay on Calcareous Manures, edited by J. Carlyle Sitterson (Cambridge, Mass., 1961); The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, edited by William Kauffman Scarborough (3 vols.; Baton Rouge, 1972, 1976, and 1989); and Incidents of My Life: Edmund Ruffin's Autobiographical Essays, edited by David F. Allmendinger Jr. (Charlottesville, Va., 1990).

Kirby's introductory essay reviews briefly the existing historical literature on Ruffin. He generally accepts David Allmendinger Jr.'s interpretation in Ruffin: Family and Reform in the Old South (New York, 1990) that Ruffin's intellectual development as an agricultural reformer was influenced by family circumstances and Malthusian theory. Kirby also links Ruffin's importance as a reformer and environmental observer to historians' growing interest in environmental history. As Ruffin's writings attest, he was keenly interested in the southern landscape and often speculated on the region's geologic history, the activities of Native Americans, and the consequences of local agricultural practices. While the edited writings presented here confirm Ruffin's reformist instincts and his passion for developing the land to avert Malthusian disaster, they also reveal how astute an observer he was. It is a stretch to claim, as Kirby does, that Ruffin was a "protoconservationist" (p. xviii), but the reformer's interest in recycling, soil conservation, and working with nature's rhythms were farsighted. These perspectives make this volume a valuable contribution to the history of Ruffin, the American landscape, and the environment.

JOHN RITCHIE GARRISON
University of Delaware