For the quail is unlike the deer or the hog. It does not multiply in the margins of neglect. It is fragile, requiring nurture, vigilance and balance. Its very existence is a testament that man has chosen stewardship over exploitation. Where the western prairies fell silent under the extractive plow of so many Eastern settlers — who used, abused and moved on — the Southern planter held to another way. His ethic was rooted not in consumption but in continuity, in the old belief that “great men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”