Talk:The Man Who Planted Trees

A true story?
The definite source for the truth on this is "The Story of Elzeard Bouffier" by Aline Giono. (An afterword of sorts, can be found in some editions of the story.) I'd prefer if someone with good english did it, but there it is. Harg 14:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

What does the Paul Winter Consort item have to do with this article? No connection is mentioned. [unsigned]

" it could not have been a true story, because sheep eat tree seedlings,[1] so any shepherd who planted acorns where his sheep were grazing would have been largely wasting his time." I think Giono dealt with this point. When the narrator revisits Bouffier, he has given up shepherding and become a beekeeper, for this very reason. Also, Bouffier walks a good distance away from his grazing flock to plant his acorns, up onto the barren hills where (the reader could assume) he doesn't take the sheep because there's no grazing. It is only when the trees have started to restore the upland soil's fertility and water retention that the sheep might move to graze where the trees are planted. Hackneymartian (talk) 11:47, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject France?
This is really a fictional story. I don't see how it fits the WikiProject France concept.

I have seen this film many times, and I think the article is well written as of the present moment.

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 08:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

a link. ..
I want to link to Ent somewhere in this article, but I can't find an appropriate place. . . 03:55, 25 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.248.115.187 (talk)

Giono seems to have known about the sheep problem
I'm not sure that Giono didn't know about the problem of sheep eating acorns:

"La pâture de ses bêtes était dans un fond de combe. Il laissa le petit troupeau à la garde du chien et il monta vers l'endroit où je me tenais. J'eus peur qu'il vînt pour me reprocher mon indiscrétion mais pas du tout : c'était sa route et il m'invita à l'accompagner si je n'avais rien de mieux à faire. Il allait à deux cents mètres de là, sur la hauteur."

Giono has Bouffier leave his sheep in their valley pasture and plant acorns on the barren ridge, where the sheep have no reason to go.

Bouffier protects his tree nursery by his cottage against the sheep: "Il étudiait déjà, d'ailleurs, la reproduction des hêtres et il avait près de sa maison une pépinière issue des faînes. Les sujets qu'il avait protégés de ses moutons par une barrière en grillage ..."

When he sees Bouffier after the war, "Il avait changé de métier. Il ne possédait plus que quatre brebis mais, par contre, une centaine de ruches. Il s'était débarrassé des moutons qui mettaient en péril ses plantations d'arbres."

I'm not saying this makes the story true, just defending Giono's arboricultural savoir-faire. Maybe Rackham hadn't read the book recently when he made this point (I haven't got Rackham's book I'm afraid).

Hackneymartian (talk) 18:01, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

IP edits
To the IP who is trying to add WG to the article - Please be aware that the infobox is only for original publication info. This also applies to the categories per WP:CATDEF. His illustration of a later volume might be mentioned later in the article but it needs a WP:SECONDARY source. The Amazon link you are adding does not meet that requirement. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 00:18, 8 October 2017 (UTC)