Rod Dreher has a good introduction to the philosophy and practices of Wendell Berry in "Wendell Berry's time is now", posted last fall. (H/T to With Each Passing Moment)
As I watch old homestead ranches around me getting bought up by commercial businesses and packed housing developments, as Americans have been doing for a few generations, well it's what Americans have always done, ask the Indians, I wish more people would do as Mr. Berry in living within his means and respecting creation at his family homestead as the article describes. I love this part of his poem,
I am at home. Don't come with me.
You stay home too.
While I agree with and admire his ethics, I haven't been able to become an ardent disciple because I don't think his particular way of life is completely practical for everyone. I love self-sufficiency, but not everyone is as smart as he is. Did he make most of his livelihood on his farm or by his gifted writing? I've talked about how much more fertile and better watered Kentucky is compared to where I live too. Still, I could probably get by with the produce available at our Farmer's Market. Wait, last time I was there I noticed that most things weren't local. But if I spent a lot of time studying, I could probably find enough local sources to keep us well-fed. But my attentions are usually diverted elsewhere. I resent the hour and a half I spend at Walmart every week as it is. And my home garden, which I prefer to access rather than going across town to the farmer's market, I'm self-sufficient that way, got mostly eaten by bugs, or didn't produce much (for the needs of a family of 8 ) for other unknown reasons. I intend on getting better at gardening though. It is a healthy sport.
I also agree with him that greedy people's industry has exploited much of our natural resources and littered the landscape. But I have decided not to be angry or contemptuous about it. I'm not saying he is, as I haven't read his works directly. 
I watched a program on Monet the other day which made a comment about his industrial cityscapes being unusual compared to other Impressionists who avoided them. I can't find the painting they talked about, but his Waterloo Bridge in London will suit my purposes. (See also his train station paintings.) I just read that he was frustrated with London weather when he painted it, but I like how he kept the mood and was true to what he saw. I don't get the feeling he hated the smoke stacks the dirty water or the fog/pollution, but made an unromantic yet non photographic work of art out of them. That's an interesting distinction. Most people probably like his garden paintings or the ones of his wife, Camille, better, but I'm glad to have his statement about the city too. It just sits there with the rest because that was what he experienced, even though he loved gardening better. Maybe it's a statement against Total Depravity.
On that note, I'll leave you with this poem by Walt Whitman,
There Was a Child Went Forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of
the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there--and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads--all became part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms, and the fruit afterward,
and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen,
And the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass'd--and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls--and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.
His own parents,
He that had father'd him, and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb, and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave him afterward every day--they became part of him.
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;
The mother with mild words--clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor
falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture--the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay'd--the sense of what is real--the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time--the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets--if they are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves--the huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset--the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide--the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away
solitary by itself--the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
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