natural wisdom

"I turned them ahead as usual toward the end of the day", said the farmer/field day host.  "They walked ahead, took a mouthful of the new grass and turned around to beller their complaints at me."

Then he told us that when he checked them the next morning they were all peacefully and happily grazing.  He went on to say he thought that the violent weather including hail and wind predicted for the night before had caused the plants to draw the sugars and liquid carbon, the good stuff, down into the roots where it would be protected, and that the sugars and nutrients had arisen to the foliage in the morning.

What are we to do about this kind of information, we who consider ourselves rational?  Do plants know to protect themselves?  Or more accurately, do they protect the nutrition for the animals that graze them?  Rationality has coached us to think of plants and animals as similar to, but maybe a small step better than machines.  Does this really describe the world?

I have seen cows with their noses pointed straight into the air so that another cow might groom their throats with that rough tongue in long strokes, bottom to top.  And horses standing in pairs, scratching each other's rumps with their teeth.  This doesn't bear much evidence of the old "nature red in tooth and claw" individualist thinking.

Just before the Covid locked us up, I was listening to a soil scientist presenting his findings about a long studied apple orchard planted on a south facing slope.  The bottom of the slope was a wet area and the top somewhat more droughty.  The scientist explained how he had devised a series of experiments and observations to prove or disprove his casual observation that the trees in the orchard were providing for each other through general association with the web of soil life where they stood and with which they were intimately involved.  He thought he saw strong indication that the trees on the bottom of the slope were sharing the water where they stood with their mates on the drier upslope through the web of life in the soil. 

 Again, do we credit this?  This fellow was not some crazy hermit, but a University trained scientist. For myself, I plan to keep these things in mind as I explore.  And while I am little qualified to pass judgement on the reality of this, I do find myself wondering about a situation in which an apple tree may send water uphill to help a thirsty compatriot but a modern nation such as ours cannot pass a law that provides health care for all and some basic help for families.  What really can we and should we learn from the plants and animals we so casually manipulate?