Fascinating--and sometimes too, the rubrics of what's considered scholarship are different. Nowadays, in the United States and Europe, people value making new contributions, uncovering new things, and spreading knowledge. But in the past in Europe and other places, knowledge was often hoarded (the way, say, trade secrets are kept today), and it was about preserving and transmitting that knowledge, unchanged, to the designated elect.

Your musings on why the Puritans reacted as they did to the New World forests are interesting. I guess some reactions people have may be instinctual, but most of our reactions are mediated by culture and are learned, and then on top of that you can put academic training.