The Farmer Who Planted an Orchard He Would Never See

In 2009, a retired schoolteacher named Elzéard Bouffier — yes, sharing the name of Jean Giono's fictional tree-planter — bought twelve acres of depleted farmland outside Tulsa, Oklahoma. The soil was so worn out that neighbors called it "the dust lot." Elzéard was seventy-three years old. He told his daughter he planned to plant an apple orchard. She thought he was out of his mind.…