Better than manifestos

Nubanusit Lake, in the towns of Hancock and Nelson, N.H.

Hancock, N.H., Man Street in 1907

“If a community has good walking paths through fields and forests, people will use them. The right environment is a far better teacher than a heap of manifestos.’’

— Howard Mansfield (born 1957) in The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age. He lives in Hancock, N.H., with his wife, Sy Montgomery, who is well known for writing about animals.

New Hampshire's first great industry

"For more than a century, the big business of Gravesend was lumber, which was the first big business of New Hampshire. Although New Hampshire is called the Granite State, granite -- building granite, curbstone granite, tombstone granite -- came after lumber; it was never the booming business that lumber was. You can be sure that when all the trees are gone, there will still be rocks around; but in the case of granite, most of it remains underground.''

-- From the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving