He gives examples of people that made mistakes and didn't have the land's health in mind. He also gives examples of people that did have the land's health in mind and how they are the people that we need to look at in order to change the way that the land is being taken care of. He give examples of scenes that "illustrate the complexities of the ongoing debate about how people ought to live on the planet- about what precisely it means to own land, about the ecological and spiritual values of wild places, and about how people should assess environmental risks and legislate pollution limits when their knowledge is incomplete. .Many land-use practices simply make no financial sense, even when long-term harms are discounted to present value- (pgs. 30-31). Freyfogle then give some solutions and thoughts on what he thinks should be done in order to change the way that the land is bounded, and treated. "Contemporary culture, in short, needs new bearings in the natural order. It needs a broader understanding of moral value and better grasp of the limits of utilitarian calculations. Empiricism and reason need to yield space to sentiment, intuition, and humility, and the myths surrounding science's powers need chipping away even while scientists expand their knowledge. Most of all, what's needed is a more holistic view of the world, one in which humans no longer stand so conspicuously above and apart from other life-forms-(pg. 37). .
Freyfogle then talks about the snail darter and land health and land ethics. He discusses Aldo Leopold and what Leopold said about land health; that the land's basic needs were conserving soil, maintaining water flows and water quality, and mitigating significant human-caused changes in species populations. Freyfogle also talks about individualism and how in America the individual is the one that counts, not the community. He gives the example of Boneyard Creek where once there was a winding, slow-moving stream lined with maples and cottonwoods and sycamores, now it is a tethered ditch, angular and rough, and is polluted all along it's banks.
