The Pine Barrens Author:John McPhee Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens. — The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover t... more »he area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the “Pineys,” are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people—and their distinctive folklore—who call it home.« less
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This is a fascinating book about New Jersey's Pine Barrens. You would never think that such a large area of undeveloped land would exist in New Jersey.
McPhee is a classic nature writer and this is one of his better books. From the Ballentine Walden Edition Library it was released about the same time as Diet for a Small Planet, Malabar Farm, and Sand County Almanac. A lost treasure of the early environmental literature of our nation.