2020-03-16_The_New_Yorker

THE NEWYORKER, MARCH 16, 2020 5

home gardeners can increase the bio-

diversity and ecological function of their

yards, just as Fiennes has at Holkham.

These include keeping the ground cov-

ered, minimizing any disturbance of the

soil, and avoiding pesticides, chemical

fertilizers, and herbicides. Pioneering

work by Fiennes, as well as by Charlie

Burrell and Isabella Tree, reminds us

that nature can recover quickly under

favorable conditions. Building up healthy

soils can help farmers and gardeners se-

quester atmospheric carbon safely un-

derground while creating a hospitable

habitat for pollinators like bees, birds,

and butterflies.

Diana Donlon

Executive Director, Soil Centric

San Anselmo, Calif.

1

SIMULATING SLAVERY

Julian Lucas explores whether slavery

reënactments are powerful teaching

tools or serve more to trivialize history

and, perhaps, to traumatize students

(“The Fugitive Cure,” February 17th &

24th). About twenty years ago, I taught

a course at Marymount College, in

Tarrytown, New York, in which my

students, a diverse group of young

women, read sections of Harriet Ja-

cobs’s “Incidents in the Life of a Slave

Girl.” I brought into the classroom

large pieces of cardboard that I had

cut to create an enclosure the size of

the attic crawl space in which Jacobs

hid for seven years. Lucas describes

spending several minutes in a crawl

space created for the same purpose by

a reënactor. In my class, only two or

three students were willing to enter

the enclosure, even for a minute. I am

still puzzling over an explanation for

their reluctance.

Jordy Bell

Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

Hannah Fry asks whether tech com-
panies’ large-scale social experiments,
such as measuring the emotional im-
pact that negative posts have on Face-
book users, are sufficiently regulated
(Books, March 2nd). She is right to
point out that such tests are not sub-
ject to federal regulations protecting
human subjects in biomedical research.
But she doesn’t mention that the ex-
periments fall outside the federal defi-
nition of “research.” The protections for
human subjects set out by the Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services
apply only to studies that are “designed
to develop or contribute to generaliz-
able knowledge”—i.e., undertaken with
the intent of public dissemination. Be-
cause market research is not meant to
be seen by the public, the rules protect-
ing human subjects are not generally
applicable—and there are no equiva-
lent federal protections for consumers
whose behavior is studied by private
organizations seeking monetary gain.
Most of the corporate practices that
Fry cites are questionable not due to a
lack of consumer consent but because
they may run afoul of other protections
that our regulatory system is supposed
to provide: truth in advertising, safety
of roads and consumer products, and
access to competitive markets.
Jennifer Steele
Associate Professor, School of Education
American University
Washington, D.C.
1
FARM FRESH

Sam Knight’s profile of Jake Fiennes,
the conservation manager of the
Holkham Estate, in England, show-
cases an approach to environmentally
responsible farming (“Betting the Farm,”
February 17th & 24th). Readers may
wonder whether the nature-friendly
ethos Fiennes espouses, as well as the
inspiring results he is getting, can be
applied to more modest plots. By fol-
lowing a set of principles universally
recognized for optimizing soil health,

•

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