Bailey may have been most proud of a series of books referred to as the Background Books. Bailey called these books his budget of opinions. The first was The Holy Earth, referred to earlier. Others were Wind and Weather (a collection of his poems), Universal Service, What Is Democracy ?, and The Seven Stars. They illustrate his humanism, his search for social good, his respect for others, his philosophy of life. He wrote in The Holy Earth: "It is good to live. We talk of death and of lifelessness, but we know only of life. Even our prophecies of death are prophecies of more life. We know no better world: whatever else there may be is of things hoped for, not of things seen."⁷ That Bailey treated the plant sciences as a means for the betterment of mankind is shown by a piece that he wrote when still a student at Michigan Agricultural College: "It was not until scientific education began to manifest itself that agriculture began its ascent from the slough of contempt in which it lay."⁸

Surely it is a remarkable tribute to a man that words he penned seventy-five years ago in The Holy Earth should at last be creeping into the thoughts and actions of a steadily increasing number of environmentally concerned citizens in North America in the 1980s. He wrote: "If the earth is holy, then the things that grow out of the earth are also holy. They do not belong to man to do with them as he will. Dominion does not carry personal ownership. There are many generations of folk yet to come after us, who will have equal right with us to the products of the globe. It would seem that a divine obligation rests on every soul. Are we to make righteous use of the vast accumulation of knowledge of the planet? If so, we must have a new formulation. The partition of the earth among the millions who live on it is necessarily a question of morals; and a society that is founded on an unmoral partition and use cannot itself be righteous and whole."⁹