America the fecund

My ankle-deep grass - hell, call it calf-deep - needs deer. If the truth be known, it also needs horses, cattle, and goats. (I leave the front gate of my fence open, but I worry enough grazers won't come.)

Actually, I plan to fire up my lawn mower soon - Wednesday, in fact, when the Weather Channel says the temperature should drop from the mid-90s to the low 70s. Think of me Wednesday morning, skipping out to cut the grass!

But now, as I gaze out of my kitchen window at tall blades of grass, the broad leaves of weeds waving in the air, the serrated growths of dandelions - together with their high-stalked puffballs of seeds - all mocking me from the ground below, I think of fecundity.

According to an article by Joel Kotkin, a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, America may or may not be the beautiful, but it certainly is the fecund.

It has a fertility rate 50 percent higher than Russia, Germany, or Japan, and significantly higher than most other countries of note. While the population of many other nations is destined to decline, sometimes sharply, the United States can expect a population growth of 100 million in 40 years.

Kotkin sees this as an economic boon - provided we provide the necessary education and jobs for all the young newcomers. Others have ecological worries. Me, I still see the need for deer.