The Chapters in Part I are arranged month by month. For example, "February - Good Oak" is an ode to an eighty-year-old oak, felled by lightning. He reads each ring of the tree as if a chapter in a book, highlighted by events from the era's conservational history. Throughout the years, progress is countered with setbacks; more stringent environmental regulations are juxtaposed with tragic extinctions.

"March - The Geese Return" is marked by the northward migration of the Canadian goose, whose migratory path is a testimony of "the unity of nations". Unlike other critters who can retreat into their lair if the land is still frozen, the arrival of the goose "carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges". Using his keen observation, Leopold educates us about natural and animal behavior. For example, the flight of the goose during fall hunting season is high and silent, whereas in the spring they fly loud and low, a raucous convention. Also, flocks comprise families, or groups of families, which is why they are often found in aggregates of six.

The essays in Part III, published after his death in 1949 address the questions we are wrestling with today. Topics include "Conservation Esthetic," "Wildlife in American Culture," "Wilderness," and the compelling "Land Ethic" which tries to replace a sense of entitlement with one of obligation.

"The Land Ethic" begins with a tale of injustice that highlights the despotic practice of slavery in ancient Greece. His point is that although we have evolved in our treatment of one another, in terms of land management, we are still ignorant of the injustice wreaked upon our landscape. Currently ethics deals with man's relationship with society and with one another, but still there is "no ethic dealing with man's relationship to the land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". Ethics forces us to view ourselves as a community of interdependent parts. Leopold simply asks us to enlarge our view of that community to include the biota - the soil, rocks, trees, and animals living around us.

Leopold laments that landowners act as if it is their right to extract as much from their land as possible. Such extraction may exhaust the soil, cause erosion and flooding, deplete the area of natural beauty and wildlife, and sully the common stream with silt, but because there is not ethic dealing with the treatment of the land, such an individual can still be hailed as a pillar of society. Leopold notes that obligations over self-interest are taken for granted when it comes to building roads, schools, and churches; but without a commonly held land ethic, water quality, biodiversity, and natural aesthetics are not a part of the public discourse, as land use is wholly governed by economic self-interest.