Don Gayton’s collection of beautifully written and passionate essays has earned him many enthusiastic fans since its first publication in 1990. In The Wheatgrass Mechanism, he writes about the industrialization of our western landscapes and the exploitation of our resources, and tells how the North American prairie has become the most extensively altered biome on the planet.

He brings a scientist’s understanding to our common landscapes and explores them in a language that is supple and evocative for the lay reader. There is a strong environmental message in The Wheatgrass Mechanism, but this is not just another “how-to-savethe-planet” book. Gayton goes beyond simple analysis and concern into the realms of culture and myth, attempting to strike a balance between science and imagination that will help us restore our bonds with the Earth.

• The Wheatgrass Mechanism – Science and Imagination in the Western Canadian Landscape
• By Don Gayton
• Fifth House Books
• Fitzhenry and Whiteside Publishers
• Markham, Ont.
• ISBN 1895618096
• 6 x 9, 156 pages, Trade Paper
• First published 1990, reprinted 1992