The West's fabled ranchers are in trouble. The damage done to the land by cattle has become a contentious environmental issue. The ranchers' greatest enemy, though, is the free market

Old MacDonald had a house. And in that house he had solar panels, honey bees, a graywater system, rabbits, a Clivus Multrum, chickens, a Savonius rotor. . . .

Author and war correspondent , ALAN MQOREHEAD was born in Australia , left for Europe at the age of twenty-tire , and has been traveling ever since. Of his war hooks he is best known for GALLTPOLI and his life of Montgomery, and of his travel books , THE WHITE NILE and THE BLUE NILE. The following excerpt is from his new volume , COOPER’S CREEK, to be published by Harper & Row.